Witch Hunter
by CrimsonNoble
Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn’t cope well. But when he’s caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he’s banished from all he knows. Will he find that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few? HPLE, vaguel
1. Chapter One

**Witch Hunter**

A Harry Potter Fanfiction

By CrimsonNoble

_Definitely AU.  
_

_Considering how Rowling's own timeline is messed up anyway (the Playstation didn't even come out until 1995), I've changed dates for my convenience. Don't know if there's a canon date of birth for Lily and James, and co, don't care. This begins in 2003, book three therefore was in 1997 (going good with the Playstation), making Lily and James dead in 1984. Hah, 1984. Orwell. Whatta coincidence. Harry therefore born in 1983. I'm saying that Lily and James took a bit of time before having a child, debating whether or not to bring a new life into the world in the present state. I'm adding two years for courtship (dating), so I'm saying they probably graduated in 1977._

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter One

The forest was dark. Dawn had yet to break, and the moon had already set. The pre-daybreak mist hung thickly, not quite prepared to relinquish it's dominion over the barren soil. Trees rose from the murky, white carpet like the spears of every fallen Roman Legionnaire, some standing straight and tall, some cracking under the strain and falling, and some kept only vaguely upright by the support of others.

In eons past, it had been a battlefield; men had fought and died for what was, at the time, a lush and fertile ground. Their blood had stained the earth, and it had lain for centuries, feeding the malevolence of nature, feeding its hatred for humanity. And when the trees had grown, they had grown angrily, speaking in their voices of eternity of how, if they only had the chance, mankind would pay for what they had done.

And through this oppressive landscape, one man walked alone. He rose from the mist like a wraith, cloaked entirely in a white cloak with the crest on his back. A golden chain attached the folds that hung before his shoulders, and the folds reached up into a hood shadowing his face. He made no sound as he passed through the midst of the trees that hated his kind, yet anything awake knew he was coming. Animals stopped, lifted their noses, sniffed, and fled his path, predator and prey ran side by side, pretending they could not see each other, yet united in their flight.

His feet left deep footprints, as if carrying a great weight, a smaller pentagon behind a larger hexagon, each connected to the other by only a small, arching impression in the dew-mud.

He was coming back. He was returning to claim his own. He was returning to pass the judgment of the Powers.

The sun rose as he reached the edge of the forest, piercing into his hood to fall across the petite jaw beneath. His head tilted back, revealing the long neck, wrapped in a black material, as he reveled in the purity of the new morning. It was the same as every other morning; and yet completely unique, completely new, and it would never come again. His heart ached with the sorrow of the knowledge that this moment, this perfect instant, would never reoccur, would pass unseen by anyone but himself. And yet he rejoiced in the knowledge that others would have instants like this one, and took selfish pleasure in being the only one to see this. It was his and his alone.

He stood, waiting silently, his eyes shut, though he had turned from the morning light. Today, it would all be over. Today it was finished. Today he would succeed or he would fail. Today was the day that he would finally, finally, finish what had begun eighteen years past. It would all finally, finally, be over. And so, instead of rushing to his goal, as he might have done not so long ago, he waited patiently, for he knew that his goal could be no where else.

He knew not the exact time he left his silent vigil, only that the sun had risen well above the flaming horizon and that the mist that had clung, stubbornly possessively, to the forest had dispersed, at the edges if not in the depths of the wood. He moved silently, the epitome of serenity in his quite grace and satisfaction that today he would no longer have to live in despair.

Long, dance-like strides carried him up to the lake, and then past it, determination evident in the silent beauty of his motions. His eyes, well hidden, calmly took in the growing shape of the immense stone structure before him. The proud towers, the gargoyles silent sentinels on the rooftop. One hand pressed against his chest, over his heart, as he gazed at the figures, those which had saved him, and which still protected him.

And then, he pushed the great wooden doors open. They moved freely before his touch, silently granting him entrance and welcoming him back into their sanctuary. Should he so desire it, he knew, the castle would accept him, let him remain there, untroubled by the sins of the world. He smiled, a mournful, grateful gesture, a simple curve of his darkened lips, and then he brought his fingers to his lips, kissed them, and pressed them against the door. _'Thank you,'_ formed on silent lips.

He entered, his footsteps silent on the stones of the castle's floor. It had not betrayed him, it had accepted who he was, it had not hurt him. In some of his wildest fantasies, he had imagined that, perhaps it may have loved him. It was an impossible dream, something that would never happen. He had lost that chance what seemed an eternity ago.

The doors to the Great Hall opened for him, and he shut his eyes, tilting his head down and forward, bowing his thanks to the castle. It was still there for him. Even after all he had done.

He stepped into the hall, interrupting breakfast. Silence fell, stunned eyes finding the sigil on his cloak as he moved toward the staff table, and terrified whispers followed in his wake. A small smile, bitter and mournful crossed his lips. He took pleasure in this, yes; he perversely delighted in their terror. But he wished he didn't have to do it. He wished didn't feel the pleasure.

He stopped, lower than the stage the head table was on. His hands, slightly too big to be natural and covered in white gloves, reached up to pull his hood down. It drifted off his helmet, almost but not quite sticking on the wings reminiscent of a valkyrie's. The gloved hand's lifted the helmet off, letting the mixture of black and platinum free of their confines, the long strands tumbling down his back. His right hand held on, sliding up to grip the helmet by the gaps for his eyes, letting the nose-piece reach out from between his middle and ring fingers. His left hand returned up, and gently removed the white mask that covered everything above his lips, the gaps for his eyes covered in one-way mirrored lenses.

Jade green eyes, once sparklingly emerald opened lazily, long dark lashes trying to stick together and ultimately failing. His forehead, once having held a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt, was clean now. A small bit of plastic surgery had removed it, and left something only detectable when he had an extremely dark tan. The soft lines of his face were accentuated by the paleness, as if he had not seen the sun in years.

"Hello Albus." He stated softly, his voice resigned.

"Harry," the man acknowledged sadly.

There was a long pause as the white-clad figure bowed his head, trying to ignore the feelings of trust and admiration that managed to tingle beneath his rage. "That isn't my name Albus. My name is The Executioner. I would have thought you of all people would have known that."

"Your name is still Harry."

Mirthless eyes blinked again, lazily as the man found that no; he didn't feel sorry for this man. No, he had yet to feel sorry for any of his deed since… then. "Arguing will achieve nothing Albus. I know my truth."

There was a sound, the ruffling of many hands reaching into many pockets for many wands. And then there was silence again, the tension in the room higher than it had been moments before.

"You have been judged. And you have been found _not worthy_." The man in white proclaimed. After this, he could stop. He could stop being The Executioner. He could be… he couldn't be anything. This was his last act, he knew. This was the last thing he would ever do, succeed or fail. He forced himself to calm down; the passion in his voice had reached beyond what he had felt in so long.

"Let the children leave, Harry," the aged wizard pleaded. "Your quarrel is with us, not them. Forgive them. She—"

He exploded. "Silence!" The roar echoed strangely in the hall, "You are not fit to _speak _of her!" He stopped, breathing heavily. Deep breaths were forced into his lungs as he fell into the Third Pattern, forcing his anger down. Later, he could rage at the world. Later, he could let his anger loose. If there was a later. The now required not his passion, but his merciful judgment.

Someone from the Gryffindor table, much less populated than it had been in his day, let loose a simple tickling hex in his surprise, the tension too much for his frayed nerves. He looked at his own wand in horror, as if the action had condemned him, and had not been intentional. He looked at the wand as if it had forced him to cast the spell.

The man in white twisted slightly, leaned just a bit backward, and let the spell dissipate against the stone walls, missing him entirely. He took meticulous care to note where the spell had come from, and otherwise ignored the attack. The Third Pattern faded slowly into the Second, and then the First, and then halted altogether. Calmed, his gaze returned to the older man.

" 'And the sins of the Fathers shall be punished, unto the third and the fourth generations,' " he quoted. "I am in no hurry Albus. Would you mind terribly if I arrange myself? You may, of course, use the time to prepare however you wish. I will not interfere. I do doubt, however, that your children will be allowed to leave." His tone expressed the request of someone who knew that his request might be denied, but held nothing less than absolute sincerity.

The bearded wizard nodded apologetically. Perhaps he deserved his fate. It was the least he could do for the child he had wounded. "Of course not, Harry." And of course, the students could be evacuated.

The cloaked man promptly began to remove the garment, smiling contentedly as the doors to the hall slammed shut, and he thanked Hogwarts once again. He didn't know if it was helping him because it believed what he was doing was right, but it was helping all the same. The chain that had connected the shoulders of his cloak slipped into one of the pouches at his waist, and he meticulously folded the immaculate cloth, running a hand almost fondly over the sigil, before pressing his lips to it and placing it in another pouch. He was now revealed to be wearing armor, the shoulders flaring only slightly, almost humbly. The breastplate was white, polished and then buffed so that while there was no shine, it could not be mistaken for anything else, yet managed to be unimposing. A collar circled his neck, giving him a fair degree of range to move in, but still protecting him from attacks. The abdomen of the armor had been scaled into something that looked like muscle, had it not been metal. At his waist hung a belt, numerous pouches dangling from it, and the saya for his curved katana on his left hip, where his _Zanna_, the _Giustiza Finale_, rested. On his right, the holster for the immense .44 caliber revolver was strapped to his thigh, over the armor. His gloves came off, revealing the gauntlets done in the same style as his breastplate, though the top of the metal gloves were suspiciously boxy, and the palms each had a small, spherical, black stone in them.

And then he placed his mask back on, and the helmet followed. And he was once again The Executioner. His hand curled around the hilt of his blade, and it sang free of the lacquered saya, two and one half feet of folded, magic resistant steel. He bowed his head, the crown of his helm clinking softly against the dull side of the _Zanna_. He ignored the chaos at the doors, as anyone who was capable tried to force them open. Hogwarts was smiling on him this day.

He opened his eyes to survey those who were going to stand without trying to flee. Seventh years, the staff, sixth years… He didn't know many of them. It was, however, nice to see the Potions professor. His hair was greasy, his skin was sallow, his nose was hooked, and his demeanor angry. It was nice to know there were constants in the world, the sun rose, the sun set, the rain fell, the sun dried it, and Snape was a greasy bastard.

It brought a smile to his lips, darkened from the consumption of potions so long ago, the effects of which still lingered. A reminder of what had been, and what never would be.

"I am ready," he proclaimed.

And everything seemed to happen at once. He shoved off, skidding to his right, sparks spraying from the contact between the metallic edges of his boots and the stone floor. Spells, jets of light, and words he no longer cared about surrounded him as he tried to force his way in to his primary enemy. The one who had been his mentor, had betrayed him. Every time he neared the man, he was driven back by renewed flurries of light, and eventually he gave up trying, instead choosing to eliminate the man's supporters.

His blade found heads, necks, and torsos, never bothering with limbs. They were just in his way. Nothing more. Yet, each corpse he left was one step closer, one life closer to his peace, his conclusion. He was merciful, their deaths were clean and instant.

He could not remember how it had happened, but he was standing before the Headmaster, his hands curled into the man's robes, lifting him from the ground. _Zanna_ was once again in its saya, and Albus was looking at him sadly. "Harry… do you think she would approve of what you have become?" He gasped, fighting to stay conscious.

His rage was once again rippling through him, and he wasn't bothering to control it. "Well, I'll never know now, will I?" He shouted in the man's face, his howling words growing almost frantic. "Because of you people she's dead!"

He forced himself calm. He could take his time now. There would be no interruptions. Everyone was either dead, or too afraid to hit their beloved Headmaster. Because, of course, he would spontaneously combust from a stray cheering charm. "Harry—"

He let go of the grip with his left hand and backhanded the man. _"Shut up!"_

_"Avada Kedavra!"_ The shout/scream/curse came from behind him, to his left. He turned; keeping Albus suspended with his right hand, and extended his left, waiting for the curse to strike. It did, the green blaze of death smashing against the orb in the palm of his gauntlet. For an instant there was a cheer, which died almost before it was formed as the mailed hand curled its fingers inward, and the light began to diminish.

"Do you know another interesting property of these orbs?" The armored man forced himself to ask of the old man he was holding up as the light vanished. "They don't negate spells, or absorb them. And its not just spells. Anything magic. They _store the magic_. And at my command," he gently pressed his left palm against the old man's cheek. "I can release them."

He paused a moment. "Riddle is in there, did you know?" He asked curiously, and then, looking into the abruptly realizing eyes murmured, _"Unleash."_

The orb in his palm obeyed, discharging everything it had ever stored into the man's face at once. It ripped through the man's head, leaving no physical evidence of its passing. But the scream as his soul was ripped from his body and destroyed was unmistakable.

And then the orb demanded its price. The backlash of the unleashed power ripped into the armored man, flinging him backward to slam into the stone floor with a clunk, the old wizard simply falling.

Only he didn't hit the ground. The armored man simply disintegrated before the soulless headmaster had finished falling, gone forever.

And when he finished falling, he was farther away than he ever could have hoped.

The first thing that greeted his eyes when he awoke was not what he had expected. A hall full of bodies, Death, the sight of the Castle, those were things he could have dealt with. Seeing a red haired, green eyed witch looking at him with concern was, suffice to say, not. He scrambled away, armored hands dragging him through the carpet of dead leaves. He was glad to see that he was still in his armor, his helmet still on, his mask still over his face.

She lifted her hands apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. But no one's here, usually." Suspicion overtook her eyes. "How did you get here anyway? I'm certain I haven't told anyone! If it was Petunia I'll kill her!"

"Petunia?" He wondered, verbalizing his thoughts for the first time in years.

The red head tilted her head. "Yeah, she's my sister."

Really not something he was equipped to deal with, was his final opinion before he fainted.

Secondary notes:

Zanna-Supposedly means "Fang" in Italian.

Giustiza Finale-Supposedly means "Final Justice" in Italian

Saya-The Japanese word for sheath. I figured I might as well use it, the Zanna's a katana.


	2. Chapter Two

**Witch Hunter**

A Harry Potter Fanfiction

By CrimsonNoble

_Whee__… Reviews. Good enough for me. Thanks ReginaLucifer. And Shezza88, you do have the best damn Harry-meets-parents that I've ever read (above even Demon's Amongst Us). I believe the question was in response to chapter nine, so I doubt you actually had a chance to respond yet, so don't worry. franky, you're supposed to be confused. Don't worry about it. And that would be the "she." Whoa… uten, you liked having a billion questions that aren't answered? Cool. Can't say I was expecting this many reviews to be honest. Fairly disturbing pairing, and whatnot. And, of course, my author's name on a fic is often enough (probably) to turn away readers, and potential reviewers. Happy, happy day. Welcome surprise, that._

_And on a totally unrelated topic, I keep thinking I've heard the generic man/boy voices in Lain somewhere. Its seriously freaky._

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, deviant sexuality, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Two:

The sun beat down on the park, devoid of life as it was, the same sun, in fact, that beat down on the lawns and houses that lined the streets of Surrey. The same (give or take an innumerable amount of hydrogen atoms) sun that had beaten down on the savage land that had existed there before the Romans conquered, before even the precursors to the Romans had lived. The same sun that had flamed boldly before life had existed on the planet. The same sun that would shower the world with its blessing, its curse, for ages to come. The same sun that was, at the moment, turning porcelain-white armor into an oven.

And so, when its occupant finally shambled into awareness, the first thing he found was that it was fairly hot. His helmet cast shade on him, but trapped the heat, if anything, more effectively than the rest of his armor. And so he ripped it off with a yelp of surprised pain and dropped it, letting his mixed hair fall free into lumped curls. The tendency of his hair to curl when wet had been a never ending frustration, especially when _hers_ was always perfectly straight.

He almost laughed. He couldn't even think her name anymore. It hurt that much. But she had left him with something to remember her by. Absently he drew a lock of the platinum hair from his head, and then focused completely on it. Maybe if he could get lost in that, and only that, he could forget what had obviously been a hallucination brought on by the stress exerted on his body by the backlash. He deliberately ignored the fact that he was clearly not in the castle anymore.

Instead he stared at the strands of hair, and for a moment he almost thought they were _hers_. But the image of the gauntlet, something he had never had when she had been alive, shattered that illusion. The alabaster purity of the metal was marred by the stains, now the deep mahogany of dried blood. His hand, somehow obscenely steady, let go of the hair, and it fell in front of his face. He left it there as he began to rub the evidence of his sins from his hands. Sins? But had not God himself said _"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"_?

But he had forgiven them in death. He would not hate those who God had already judged. It was not his place. Well, he thought only slightly bitterly, he didn't have a place anymore. He'd already killed that man… or rather, destroyed his soul. And, quite possibly, considering everything, replaced it with Riddle's soul. That would be a problem. But not his problem.

He drew himself into a ball, wrapping his arms around his armored knees, ignoring the searing sensation as any bare flesh that came into contact with the armor burned. Some part of his mind knew that he needed to vacate the armor immediately, or suffer through a case of heat stroke. That was a fact he pushed away, too absorbed in the _now_ to worry about the consequences. People had told him that vengeance would leave him empty, a hollow person. What was wrong with him that he didn't feel that way? He felt fulfilled. He could die now.

But he couldn't take his own life. No, if nothing else, he owed that much to her.

Which was the reason he didn't realize the green eyed, red haired witch was still there. Admittedly, she wasn't directly in front of him, nor was she conspicuously trying to get his attention. On the other hand, she wasn't hiding from him, nor was she trying to avoid his attention. In fact, if she hadn't been staring at him, he might almost have thought she didn't know he was there. Had, of course, he known she was there.

She, however, was somewhere between mildly curious and morbidly fascinated. The upper part of his face was hidden from sight by a plain white mask, marred by a mostly vertical splatter of blood. Indeed, most of his armor was splashed with the liquid, though none of it appeared to be from him. But then, blood was blood, and it was hard to tell. Plus, it was hard to see, with him curled up into a nearly fetal position. The gun at his right hip, the side of his body facing her, was the biggest sidearm she had ever seen, but she hadn't actually seen many, so she really had no basis for comparison. An overly complex way of saying she really didn't know anything about guns. The sword on the other side of his body, on the other hand, she knew more about. It was a Japanese katana. And that was all she knew about _it_.

Yes, she was very out of her depth.

She considered going to the police. But then, she had been considering that ever since he had gone limp. And she hadn't done it.

Slowly the man turned his head up to the sun, allowing the heat to permeate his flesh despite knowing already that he was not going to be happy with his decision later. The warmth, however, brought to mind another heat, from another day.

_ It is hot. This is the only thing he is fully aware of, though he does not even understand this. There is also pain, too much pain. It is making everything else dull in comparison._

_ He can't tell how long it has been, only that it seems like he has spent an eternity and an instant the field, amongst the blood and bodies. He's looking for something, but he can't remember what it is anymore. All he knows is that he needs it, and its missing. He thinks it might be here, but only because this is where he is looking._

_ There is resistance when he tries to move his left leg, it is dragging strangely, and he thinks it may be broken. This, he believes, is the source of the pain, although he is having trouble moving his left arm. His right eye is having trouble seeing, and it isn't until he tries to wipe the mixture of sweat and blood from his eyes that he realizes his right hand has been clutching at an impressive hole in his left._

_ He isn't sure how long he wanders the field of corpses before he finds _her_. Immaculate even in death, wisps of platinum blonde hair falling over her face, eyes closed… He wants to fall into the illusion that she is merely asleep. He wants to believe that he is hallucinating, and that she really is breathing. He wants to think that the way her chest rises and falls is not merely a mirage brought on by the heat and pain and sickness._

_ Carefully he manages to move her head into his lap, taking care to keep blood from staining her hair. His left leg is stretched out, the foot at an angle from his knee that it is not meant to be, because he cannot bend it. His right is folded, the foot underneath the thigh of the opposite leg. Cautiously he brushes a stray lock of hair from her face, and stares in horror at the crimson streak left behind._

_ His lips start to form her name._

And then his eyes snapped open, and he jerked involuntarily. It had been a long time since the last time _that_ dream occurred. The hope that it would not come again was now quite dead.

Hesitantly he reached up, removing the mask from his face before letting it fall to the dirt. His tarnished green eyes peeled open, and for the first time he noticed the red headed watcher. She was sitting in a lotus position, though her hands were shoved out behind her, propping her up. Her hair might have dangled loosely above her shoulders, where it not tied back into a thin, very solid looking, short ponytail. A baggy button down shirt, probably three sizes too big, managed to hide any hint of her sex, though the pants, flaring at the ankles, did anything but.

For a moment, he was silent. "Er," he finally said eloquently.

"Hi." The girl said.

"Hi?" He asked.

"What's your name?"

There was a long pause. "Name? Exe—" he started, before halting abruptly. He didn't need to be called that anymore. Of course, there wasn't much else he would respond to. "Exe."

"Exeh what?"

He could have struck himself. A last name was not something he had. "Kujo," he finally offered, having once known someone with that surname, "and it's Exe. You've added something."

"Exe. Kujo. Your parents had problems."

He stifled a snort. Yes they had problems, or at least one, namely being dead. "And your name is?"

"Lily Evans," she responded, "though if you call me Lils or anything remotely like it, I will hurt you."

"Oh, bugger," he mumbled. "Absolutely perfect. Was it supposed to do that?"

"Was what supposed to do what?"

He hadn't realized his voice was that loud. "Nothing."

"I see. So is there any particular reason you look like someone pulled from the Middle Ages crossed with an American cowboy and a Samurai?"

It wasn't a particularly bad description, but far too general. "Occupational hazard."

"The danger of your job is looking like some sort of time traveling freak with bad fashion sense?" She demanded, slightly incredulously.

"Yes." Exe guessed. He had no idea what she meant but that, but it felt like a good time to agree.

Still suspicious, but willing to accept the idea for the moment, she responded, "Okay then. What exactly do you do?"

He had to restrain the automatic response of, 'I hunt witches.' That would not be a good thing to say in present company, he felt. "I work in Law Enforcement. Of a sort."

"Really," she said skeptically, "Well what exactly do you do?"

He thought for a long moment. "I hunt people who, according to the law, don't exist and bring them to justice for what they have done."

"So you're a hitman." She said.

"No. But what do _you_ do?"

She was silent, and when she spoke it was not in answer to his question. "How old are you?"

"That was not an answer. But nineteen. Twenty in a few months."

She frowned. "Fine. I go to a boarding school in Scotland that you've never heard of. And isn't that a little young to work?"

"I've heard of a lot of places. Try me." He ordered.

"Answer the question first."

"I've been doing it for years," he offered reticently. "So it could be worse."

"The school is called Hogwarts. Happy now?"

There went his last hope of this not being his mother. "Happier."

Lily fidgeted. "So, where are you staying?"

Exe blinked. He hadn't thought of that. "Nowhere."

"Oh."

"I don't suppose you would be able to recommend someplace cheap to stay?" He rooted around inside one of the pouches, "Actually, free might be a better word. I'm having a bit of financial trouble at the moment." He hadn't counted on being pulled back in time. Obviously therefore, he hadn't prepared for it, and correspondingly he had only what little money he hadn't used getting to the Castle.

"I might…" she said slowly, as if considering something.

"Yes?" He demanded after a minute of silence.

Her gut instinct was screaming that she could trust him. Had she been someone with any experience with instinct, she would have known this to be prone to error. However, as she was not, she decided to take its advice. There were far stupider things she could have done, tying a sign to her face that read "Mudblood" and walking into Voldemort's fortress, for example. None of them involved this particular situation in any way.

"You might be able to stay at my place. My parents are good people. Do you have any money?"

Exe fidgeted. "I have a Swiss bank account I might be able to get into…" it wasn't a lie. Once, what seemed like an eternity ago, he had been told that the Potters owned a substantial Swiss account. It had, in fact, been entirely forgotten by generations before Lily found the number in one of the vaults. Obviously that hadn't happened yet, she had introduced herself as Evans.

" 'Might be able to get into'?"

"It has been… a while since I tried. I'm not sure I remember how."

Lily nodded, suspicion throbbing, but covered by a layer of her beloved instincts. "Well… come on then."

(--)

Exe slipped through the door following Lily. By some absurd stroke of luck, or more probably the obscene heat, he had made it to the house without being seen or arrested. He was going to need some normal clothes soon. Despite being what he had always walked around in before, he somehow doubted that a suit of armor was going to get him very far.

And there was the small problem of the unbearable heat of the thing. His vision was already hazy, and he wasn't sure how much farther he would be able to go. The stairs were looking a bit intimidating at the moment.

"Would you mind terribly if I—" he started to ask, before collapsing with a metallic crash.

Lily considered the unconscious man on the floor. "This probably isn't a good place to leave him…"

Secondary Notes:

Harry is henceforth Exe. Exe is pronounced like the beginning of (amazingly enough) Executioner.


	3. Chapter Three

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

_Author's Notes: Heh… right-o. Yes, Fleur is dead. Yes, we haven't met her. Yet, ish. Right, shutting up. And, uten, you're right. It should be listed as LE. Damnation, did I actually do that? And the H is somewhat one-sided. Like, entirely one-sided. Like, the other side doesn't even know it exists, one-sided. The Vampire Story Hunter, I remember one that came out like last year, but I think it actually ended up with the attraction being one-sided, and the last I remember Harry told his parents everything. Stupid of him, I mean, hello, you've just told them that they have a destiny they _must_ fulfill. If someone told me that, I'd do everything to prevent that outcome… Anyway, Numba1, I do this whenever the mood strikes. It's been possessing me for the last few nights… ._

_Flashbacks are generally indicated by italics. And present tense. All flashbacks will be in present tense. I like present tense. You can do the most interesting things with it._

_Anyway, this chapter may be a bit short because my copy of Micro$oft Word is expiring. Blast._

_Exe's theme song is now _Shame_ by _Stabbing Westward_. It defines his personality quite well. Excepting, of course, _she_ isn't ignoring him. _She_'s dead._

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, deviant sexuality, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LE, HP/H

Chapter Three:

"So. Who is he?"

That was the first question of a long series. Lily had not expected her sister to be fine with anyone she brought home. She had been wrong. Petunia could not have cared less, excepting that the man was occupying the couch. And even that didn't bother her too much, most of the time she wasn't even home. Lily had expected her parents to be vaguely curious as to whom he was, but otherwise not really care, as long as compensation was going to be given. She was wrong on that count too, they wanted to know where he had come from. This was, she admitted, a justified question. It was, however, not one she had thought to ask. This err in judgment had lead to an extremely rare event, the use of her full first name. Lillith.

She had managed to pacify her parents, by reminding them that he was unconscious on the couch, and he was probably not going anywhere. Nor was he much of a danger, unless spouting random sentences, often in French, counted as a danger. She had not been completely surprised when they had actually considered that this might be dangerous, and corrupt her purely English mentality. Her supposedly "purely English mentality," rather, she hadn't actually been pure for years. She was, after all, a witch.

The man had not regained consciousness, and while she had been able to remove his helmet and mask with some difficulty, the rest of his armor proved more complex than at first glance, a weave of interlocking straps, buckles, and assorted fasteners. Even this was a layer she only reached after puzzling out how to look beneath the plate armor. She was entirely certain that there must be some way to get the armor off efficiently, else how would it ever be worth while to take it off to clean and sleep, to have to put it back on? In any case, what she had seen beneath the mask and helm had been a pleasant surprise. He looked like he had been carved out of marble by someone who knew exactly what a human face _should_ look like, but had never been told that humans were imperfect.

What the man, Exe, had done was mumble incoherent strings, though this opinion was most likely because he mumbled in French. Few of these utterances had been happy, for often the tone had been harsh, and indeed chiding. On occasion, however, the alabaster that was his face would smile, and the sweat that constantly coated it in his fever-dreams would make it almost seem like he was crying.

His temperature returned to the human normal of ninety eight Fahrenheit a fortnight later, though he still did not regain consciousness. However, his temperature continued to drop until it reached eighty eight. Three days after that he woke for the first time.

When he opened his eyes, it was dark. This did not actually pose a problem for him, physically at least, but it was not something he enjoyed. Especially not upon waking up. He shivered at the memory that brought back.

_He is prone on the floor. His world is stone and darkness and cold. Infrequently he awakes to find a bowl of something within arm's reach. It is edible, but the way it feels as he consumes it makes him very glad he cannot see what it is. The bowl is wooden, and he has spent many long hours learning what it feels like. It is no deeper than the width of his palm, and the bottom is flat. At first there were splinters, both in his hands and his throat, but now it is smooth. He cannot see what color it is, though it smells faintly. It is not a smell he recognizes as wood, but the scent he subconsciously associates with winter, crisp and of wood-smoke._

_He is still wearing his pajamas. They are thick cotton, and before he received them were Dudley's, and are a sweatshirt, fortunately with a hood, and sweatpants. He is not wearing underwear, and the material itches constantly, but the cold is worse. When he first received them, and was told that they were to sleep in, he was angry, it was summer, and it was too hot for them. Now he thanks the Dursleys, though surely had they known it would bring him comfort they would not have given them to him. He does not bear them ill will for this; he does not have the strength._

_When he feels the urge, he finds his way to a corner, and relieves himself. The entire cell stinks of urine, and feces, though he has not had anything solid enough to shit since he first found himself here. Then he screamed, wailed, begged, and threatened, but now he is silent. He cannot find a door to the chamber, nor can he find the ceiling, though he is certain that there is an opening somewhere, for often he can feel a cold breeze._

_His lips are dry and chapped, and he is dehydrated. He is having difficulty stringing together coherent thought, and his face is numb. His ears hurt, and he is glad for it, because this is the only way he knows they are still there. He is never warm anymore, and what scares him perhaps worse is that he is growing accustomed to the temperature._

_He does not know how long he has been here. He thinks it may be more than a month, but his sense of time is failing him. He is always tired, and he cannot tell how long he has slept when he wakes. Indeed, the only way he knows that he has slept at all is that sometimes he will dream. Invariably these dreams are of evenings at Hogwarts, sitting comfortably full in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, listening to the vague and distant voices of his housemates. Sometimes it is Ron and Hermione bickering, sometimes it is the joyful chatter of first years, too young to really have anything to worry about, sometimes it is even his 'fan club', the Creevy brothers, Ginny, and some of the other years, whose names he does not know. It is wonderful, and sometimes he will have flashes of the dark and cold. He thinks they are dreams._

_And then he wakes, and returns to his reality of shadows and frost._

_Surely, he wants to believe, surely someone is looking for him. Surely someone has noticed that he is gone. Surely someone will find him._

_He does not know how it happened. In the beginning he made up hundreds of possible scenarios, ranging from Death Eaters storming into Number Four, to being put under the Imperious curse and drawn away, to absurdities like sleepwalking out of the house._

_The reality is worse. Bellatrix Lestrange met his uncle, and arraigned a deal with him. Sixteen pounds of gold in galleons for the nephew he does not even want. At first he wanted it in pounds, but she refused to touch muggle money, and he gave in shortly. While the boy was sleeping, the man unlocked the door, pressed a chloroform rag to his mouth to keep him under, and took the boy to the Death Eaters. He took the gold, for Lestrange has a code of ethics of a sort, and then he left. He did not reach his home before the case he had placed on the center console exploded._

_The first time he is visited, the boy is asleep. He is not aware he has a visitor, until he is already outside his cell. He is not even fully aware of what this means until he finds himself on the floor, prostrate in front of the Dark Lord, surrounded by the silent rank of Voldemort's most faithful, most powerful servants. He is blind, his glasses are not with him, and his eyes cannot adjust to the light. It hurts, and he screams._

_Because of this, he does not hear the curse before it hits him. His agony is multiplied a thousand-fold, and his screaming intensifies. It is the cruciatus curse, and it is from only one man, Sir Thomas Marvolo Riddle. At this time, he does not know that Voldemort is a Knight, nor what he did to achieve knighthood. He does not know how long it is before the curse is lifted, only that he can still scream and hear his screams. The Elite of the Death Eaters are silent, there is no laughter, and the Dark Lord is not gloating. This, he realizes, is the true power of his enemy, his foe is no longer holding back as he must have been before._

_The sheer magic concentrated in the room is stifling, and he is having trouble breathing. His hearing is muffled, and he realizes later that all of this oppressive power is coming from one man, and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man he is destined to kill or be killed by is the most powerful man he has ever met. Even Dumbledore, he believes, cannot match the sheer force of this power._

_But now, he is unaware of anything but the floor. It is perversely comforting, and he wants, needs, to return to the dark, the cold, the stone._

_It is a long time before he is returned._

_He loses track of how many times this happens quickly, and all now he can think much of the time is how very much he would like to escape into death._

_Light bursts over him, and he winces, screwing his eyes tightly with his last remnants of strength. It is going to happen again. The pain, the humiliation, all of it. Again and again and again and again and again…_

_He is lifted, but it is not harshly. It is gentle, comforting._

_He recoils as best he is able. This is obviously just one more perverse method of torture his enemy has devised, entirely for the purpose of crushing the boy more. He will not fall for it; he refuses to fall for it._

_A voice murmurs something comforting, and he tries to ignore how it makes him hope. He fails miserably, and he would cry if the moisture was within him. And for the moment, he gives in to the hope, and allows himself to be held gently._

He gagged at the memory, his lack of eating anything while he had been unconscious having repainted some details he would rather forget, in far more exact colour than he would ever have remembered otherwise. Perhaps had he eaten something, he might have thrown up.

Exe forced himself into a sitting position, more or less, though he was bent as far forward as his armor allowed, dry retching. At least it was cool, and the invasive heat was gone now. It was night, and the sun was gone. How ironic, the sun brought his light, and the sun brought the heat. It nearly made him sick to think about it. The moon was worse, however. It brought back _her_.

"No…" he whispered, refusing to think about it.

He rose unsteadily, the muscles in his legs dormant. Only _that_ allowed him to stand at all, and he refused to acknowledge that it existed. To some it might have appeared that he was not having trouble at all, but to anyone who knew what to look for it was fairly obvious that he was resisting something. The slight slump of his left shoulder, the almost invisible tightening of the right corner of his lips.

His armor clinked softly as he moved, and he could almost _feel_ the edges grinding. He did his best to ignore the sensation, and continued his staggering toward what he dearly hoped was the kitchen. He needed water, hard water. Food could wait, even being what he most unfortunately was, thirst would eventually get to him. Hunger took more time to become debilitating.

Exe lurched into the tiled room, and blurrily tried to figure out where the cups might be kept. Eventually he gave this up, and stumbled to the sink, turned on the tap, and began to drink from it as best he could. It was the worst water he had ever tasted, but it was water. He gorged himself on the tepid liquid, until he thought his gut was going to explode, and still drank more.

When he pulled away, he wiped his mouth with the fingertips of his gauntlets, and smiled. While it wasn't the healthiest thing he could have done, it could have been far worse. Not having it at all would have been far worse. One hand clinked loudly against the handle of the faucet, and he shut it off carelessly, nearly wrenching it from its base.

He made his way back to the couch, and collapsed onto it in a position that was just barely sitting up, mainly because his weight was collapsing the cushioning.

And he waited. The sun rose, and he found that he was facing a window, a window that showed the east. Fog blanketed the city, and he wondered why. It was not natural fog, he could tell that without the help of a witch. No, instead of manipulating the sun the way fog did, it turned the world into a prismatic display of color. It was unsettling, to say the least.

The clock ticked the seconds away beneath his gaze, the hard click obscenely loud in the silence of the room. It was six forty-four, plus eighteen seconds. The house felt like a mausoleum, though considerably less dust encrusted. Mausoleums, he knew, held dead people. And dead people were things he did not think about if he could avoid it. Because _she_ was…

He could not allow himself to associate _her_ with death. That would make it real again, and he did not want it to be real. He could not _allow_ it to be real. Because if he admitted it was real, he would become The Executioner again. And more and more and more and more and innumerable more sins would stain his hands, and he would not meet her again, even in death.

He was only peripherally aware that there was someone else there, and allowed himself a moment of weakness, wrapping his arms around himself tightly. Had he known exactly who was watching, he would not have dared show weakness.

And through the door Lily Evans watched, feeling as though she was intruding on something intensely private, but not leaving. It was probably cruel of her to stay, she knew, but she had no particular reason to be kind to this man. It was a small cruelty, and one that happened many times every day, all over the world. But nonetheless a cruelty was what it was.

She watched for a long time, until he finally stood, head bowed. It hurt so very much to know _she_ was dead, even if he adamantly refused to admit it. And Lily fled, trying to get away before he realized she was there. She could not know that he had been aware of her presence the entire time, and had been unable to do anything about it.

Exe's eyes were calm, when next she saw him. The mask was perfect in every way, externally. The only way it could have been better was if it fooled him. It was his cheap imitation of Zen, his cheap imitation of the calm brought from lack of attachment to the Material, learned in a month, necessary to hide what he was from his friends. Friends he had, at that point, not understood anymore. They were still in some ways children, knowing of mortality, but still convinced that Death could not touch them. The Executioner had.

He was attempting to explain to Lily's mother that he needed some way to access his bank account, and that she was welcome to watch if she wished, though she would not see the code. The woman was becoming increasingly annoying, stuck on the fact that the account was _Swiss_. Why, she wanted to know, did he need a _Swiss_ account? Because, he tried to explain, it was a family account, and he had not been the one to create it, and had the creator been alive, he would have words with the man. Why then, she continued, did his family have need of a _Swiss_ account? He did not know. The conversation continued in this vein for a while, until Petunia needed her mother for something, and Exe was spared, though warned that he would better have the money by next week.

"Excuse me, sir," Exe asked Lily's father, "would you know where I could access my bank account?"

And the process repeated itself, though this time Lily rescued him from her father.

"Thank you." Exe finally admitted, after several long minutes of not looking at Lily.

"Any day. I expect a cut for the rescue though," she said.

He turned to look at her, blinking lethargically. "I would expect no less." He responded. Everything in the world was material it seemed sometimes.

"If you're going to the bank," she ignored his statement, and continued not looking at him, "you're going to need something else to wear."

Exe looked down at himself, considered his armor a moment, and then realized exactly what the neighbors had been staring at. Right, muggles weren't used to a Hunter being out in broad daylight. How long had it been since they had become used to it back then?

"I'm not borrowing anything from your father," he declared.

Lily looked at him, as if astounded by his stupidity. "He's ten centimeters taller than you are. You wouldn't fit in anything of his. I think I might have something that would fit you. Yes it is a male's," she added at his skeptical look.

He said nothing for a minute, before asking fatalistically, "Where is it?"

It wasn't long before the clothes were shoved into his arms, and he was pushed into the bathroom, chased by, "Shower. Now. You reek."

Exe stared at the tub, once-white porcelain, free standing. Calcium deposits turned the surface grainy, and rough to the touch. There was a curtain, pale blue, and the faucet jutted out of the cracking plaster that was the wall. It was a very barren room, compared to any he had seen in the house. The mirror looked like it had been glued to the wall with too much glue and too little skill, the top reached farther from the plaster than the bottom.

He set the clothes down on the lid of the toilet, and began to strip his armor off. While it indeed looked like there were an obscene number of connections, there were only six that were part of his armor. The rest fastened a number of belts to his body, forming something like a shirt. Jaded eyes fixed on the mirror, traveling over the spotted surface, fixing on each of the buckles in turn. Each was a pure metal, every one different. One more reminder of what he was, and what he wished he wasn't.

He finished stripping hastily, trying to recapture the sense of harmony he had once possessed. He doubted it would ever return, though he constantly strove to achieve it. Anyone who saw him now would think him naked, and not just because his armor was gone.

Water cascaded over his flesh, and he washed quickly, efficiently. He was out again before the water had reached even a lukewarm temperature, and drying himself absently. The clothes Lily had given him, while not unpleasant, were oddly formal, a button-down dress blouse and a pair of khaki slacks. A belt to go with the slacks, which he thanked her for mentally, as the waist was much too wide, though no socks or shoes. His own would suffice, especially if concealed within the oversized pants.

"Merci beaucoup," he thanked her as he placed his equipment away. The revolver he had refused to part with, and was now strapped to his thigh beneath the pants, the pocket now missing. It would be neither a quick or easy draw, but the _Zanna_ was too long to conceal. The long sleeves allowed his gauntlets to stay on, and when combined with the gloves, they did not look entirely obvious. His hair could not be changed, and he left it undisturbed. It would look incredibly out of place, and draw far too much attention, but he could do nothing about it.

Having absolutely no knowledge of French, she snapped, "Fine. I expect you will need a bank in London."

The imitation-Zen mask fell back into place, cutting his irritation short. Lily was beginning to annoy him more than it would be wise to, but then she had no idea what she was in the presence of. He was getting better at the mask; it almost made him believe he was calm.

"Why," Lily asked abruptly, "is your hair like that?"

_It is night when he regains consciousness. He has only vague memories of the previous night for now, and all he can tell at the moment is that there is something subtly different. He cannot see, but he can tell where everything is for some reason._

_Someone, or something, is crying. It is _her_, and he does not know how he knows this, only that a deep, overriding instinct is now demanding that he find her. He stands, finding himself naked except for the buckles around his upper torso, and stumbles out of the room, looking for _her_. She is hurting, and it hurts him to feel it._

_He finds her outside his room, and she is sobbing. He does not know what is wrong, and so he falls to his knees next to her. He attempts to embrace her, and she shoves him away, horror in her eyes._

_And that hurts more than her pain. She is revolted by him; that is the only explanation. She flees, tears still dripping from her face, but he does not follow. It hurts so much, he cannot move. It feels like something within his chest is twisting his heart-of-emotions, trying to rip it completely out._

_He wraps his arms around himself, and curls forward, almost pressing his forehead to the stone of the corridor. It does not dawn on him that he is naked, though fortunately he is in an isolated area and no one passes, nor does he realize that the stones do not feel cold, though the nearest fire is on the other side of a wall several meters down, nor does he think it odd that the dark in the hall is not frightening._

_All he can feel is the pain._

_His flower is elsewhere, clothed in a thick robe, the tears still drifting down her face. It is unforgivable, what she has done. Perhaps it was the only way that his life could be spared, but she cannot forgive herself for what she has made him. She knows he hurts, knows she is causing him more pain than she should be, knows he understands nothing, but cannot go to him, cannot comfort him. That would force her to face him, face her creation, see the changes she has inflicted upon him, the utter, disgusting perfection, the marble flesh, his hair, half of which now matches her own._

Exe pressed his left hand to his face, the heel of the palm against his eye, trying to clear his mind. He slammed the mask back on, becoming calm, imitation-Zen. He ignored the question, instead choosing to ask, "How are we getting to London?"

_Secondary A/N:   
Hard water is the kind that's just chock full of minerals. It can make one quite sick. Hint-hint. Also note the use of "a" and not "the" before "Hunter." Ten centimeters is a little less than four inches._

_Anyway, this chapter is probably going to be revised._


	4. Chapter Four

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

_A/N: See end of chapter_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Four:

"And my cut?"

Exe was impressed, somewhere in the depths of his mind. She had been patient, had in fact set a trap. Lily had guided him to a place that, while not completely on the wrong side of town, was far enough away to prevent him finding his way to her house, outside of extreme chance. In fact, because most people would assume they were on the wrong side of town, they would probably have ended up going in the opposite direction of the house. She was smart, but then, she was Head Girl.

"You will get it. After you…" he paused, looking for the right word, and failing to find it instead used the first one that had come to mind, "… escort me to your domicile."

Lily was silent. Her eyebrows drew closer together as she thought. "My what?"

Of course, she had never proceeded beyond her fourth, perhaps fifth year of standard education. Domicile was one of the words she had not learned. "Your house, Miss Evans."

Her lips thinned. 'Miss Evans' always had been, and always would be her sister, Petunia. Her parents, she thought sometimes, had a flower fetish. Her eldest sister, older than Petunia by two minutes, and dead before Petunia had been born, had borne the name 'Rose'. "Don't call me that," Lily commanded, voice tightly controlled with irritation.

Imitation-Zen hid the surprise that would otherwise have been visible in Exe's eyes. Her reaction had been far more violent than he had expected. "As you will. What am I to call you by?"

Lily paused. She did not want this man to think he was her friend, and thus she would not allow him the privilege of her first name. This, however, did not leave many things to call her. "Red," she said, the first thing that came to mind. Probably because it was the name she most hated being called by, and that _bastard_ Potter used it as a nickname for her.

Exe nodded complacently, storing the information, and rubbing his left temple. There was something not quite right in the area. He was having difficulty remembering what the sensation was, and for the first time, missed the Lady.

Ah, the Lady. A Hunter, a Hunter of those who were man and wolf and neither. The Lady Guillotine, the personal demon of Paris. Born of blood to never die in blood.

He gazed vapidly at Lily, who grew impatient with him quickly. "What?" She demanded.

Without thinking too carefully, he asked, "Have you ever been to Paris?" and then, without waiting for an answer, "Lead on to your house then."

She stood, shoving the wooden chair back from the small table, nearly into the sign for the restaurant. "Come on then," she muttered, it was far too hot for this.

Exe nodded, bracing himself on the table as he stood unsteadily. The temperature was an unusual thirty eight degrees, or so the meter on the table claimed. This was not natural.

Probably his fault, he reflected. Everything always did seem to be his fault.

She led the way to her house, walking lethargically. It was a day to be slow, and the asphalt of the street was melting as Exe discovered when she led him across an intersection, nearly becoming stuck. Heat rising from the blacktop made images sway, and Exe stumbled as quickly as he could into the house, where it was, if not cold, cooler than outside.

Exe nearly collapsed against the wall, and ended up sliding slowly down it after reaching the room he had been unconscious in. His eyelids slid almost shut as his head bowed, his breathing slowing as he attempted to cool down.

He reached out, picked up his mask between two fingers, and managed to place it on his face before he drifted off.

_"I cannot do that, Dumbledore!" It is a platinum-blonde witch, and she is desperate, and this makes her speech heavy with accent. She knows that the boy in the hospital wing is nearly dead, and will be if something does not happen soon. "You cannot ask me to do this, Dumbledore! You know not what it will do!"_

_The aged wizard makes eye contact with her, though he realizes that his Legilmency will do nothing against this witch. It is true that he does not know what will happen, but he does know that there is no other option, short of having the boy turned into a child of the darkness, bitten by the moon-born, or the hope that he will become an Immortal. The first is unacceptable, the night walkers cannot use magic, the second is impossible, the full moon is still weeks away, and the third is almost certainly not going to happen._

_"You must, child. He will die if you do not." He does not understand her resistance. The Veela sentence is rare now, only three in the last half-century of his life have been given. This is a chance any other Veela would die for._

_"He will die if I do!" She is rapidly approaching hysterics, and the older man knows that it is mere moments before she gives in. The air in the room is growing dry and hot as she lashes out, her Veela blood trying to protect her from the perceived threat._

_"But he will be alive, alive enough to kill Voldemort. And that is what we need him to do. And you know well that Veela grow rare, they die, and less produce full blood children." It is true. They cannot allow the boy to die; first he must kill the Dark Lord, at the very least, though his death after would be most unfortunate. Veela are a dying race, to them the laws that restrain them are a rot, and now they are close, very close, to passing from the world entirely._

_"You do not understand!" She screams, and her voice hits an octave only obtainable because of her Veela ancestry, she sounds like a pained sparrow, "There is a reason it is forbidden by your Ministry!"_

_She almost folds at the look the wizard directs at her. It is cold, and full of disdain. His presence seems to grow, though it is merely an illusion, skillful wand work. "And there is a reason I am telling you to do this!"_

_It is the first time he has raised his voice in many a year and she is stunned momentarily, before bowing her head in resignation. "He will not be the same. Physically or mentally…" and her voice is soft, she is giving him one final warning, one last chance to stop this madness. "Someone will need to teach him to hide it…"_

_The man nods, already making his choice on who it shall be. Perhaps he recognizes the warning and ignores it, or perhaps he does not understand that it is her last gambit, and she believes that he knows how drastic the changes will be._

Lily sighed, and glared at the man, sleeping in a sitting position. He was clearly not as healthy as he should have been, though she could not bring herself to care all that much for some reason. For some reason he had replaced the mask, and Lily wondered why.

She decided to wait to get paid. It wasn't so much that she was worried about the man, but that she didn't know how he would react to being awoken. If the gun and blade were anything to go by, however, it would probably not be kindly.

_Beneath him is something cold, smooth, and hard. It is metal, he thinks, and wonders where he is. He attempts to sit up, not expecting to succeed, for he has tried every time he has woken, to no avail. This is, however, how he discovers that he is both naked, and chained to the metal. This is never a good thing, in his experience, and chains…_

_Tears run down his face at the knowledge of what chains entail._

_And then, in the weakness, is when he discovers the collar. Collars have one purpose to him, and that is to cause people pain. To hurt them, just to see how much they can take. And he knows that this time will be no different._

_Then there is someone else there, and there is something ripping at him, though his flesh remains unmarred. He screams as he feels something being torn away from himself, and while it is heard by many people, only two of whom recognize the scream for what it is, no help comes._

_Tears flood his cheeks, and there is pain, and abruptly there is pain that comes because of his flesh. He screams again, though this is less intense than the last, and in the midst he is cut off, a pair of lips on his, and something sticky and sweet and familiar and OH GOD IT'S BLOOD is forced into his mouth, and down his throat._

_And it happens again and again and again and again and again, until he is certain that he must be bleeding to death, and the pain is there, and the wounds are not, and he thinks this is what hell and insanity are and then—_

_Silence.__ He is alone again, and there is no pain and there are no wounds._

_It is night…_

Exe's eyes snapped open. Fear and anger were etched into his face for a moment, and then the imitation-Zen mask dropped over his face.

He glared at the window, the prism of color dancing over it. The wall clock, however, told him that it was just before one in the morning. He glared harder, and something resonated in the back of his mind.

Had Lily been that… cold before? He wasn't sure, but he didn't think so. And the fog was unnatural…

And then he understood. He had run into one once before, but he had not been the one to deal with it. The one that rested comfortably outside, however, he would have to do himself.

He stood slowly, then stripped out of the borrowed clothes, folded them, and donned his armor. He left the house quietly, leaving the door unlocked. Almost immediately the fog-mist thickened around him, and the prismatic display burned harshly into his eyes.

"Leave, demon…" he murmured softly. The mist swirled, becoming denser. "This is not your ground demon," he commanded, voice full of ominous warning.

Slowly the mist formed a head, laughing. "And how should you drive me away if I do not wish to go? With your sword? With your gun? Your weapons cannot hurt me."

Exe's eyes fixed on the face. "What is your name?"

The face grinned broadly. "Now, now, I can't do that! I know what magic can be used with a name!"

Exorcism, therefore, was out of the question. Cutting off the demon's head would be difficult, when there was nothing to cut the head off of. Which left his revolver…

"You have answered true," he said quietly, "and now you shall move on."

The demon's laughter split the night. "You think to tell me what to do? Boy, I have walked this earth since before the Impaler reigned!"

The next words killed the laughter, "And yet you speak as one of the Freaks who devour without thought, as one who was sired yesteryear. Your words lie, and in the lie they mimic your nature."

The fog-mist formed a body, and it stormed at the armored man, rage scrawled across its features. "You dare too much!" It screamed.

The revolver trailed up, leveling between the demon's eyes. "In the name of God, those which are not of this earth shall be banished for eternity. Amen."

The demon howled. "A gun is useless against me!"

Exe pulled the trigger, sending the bullet spiraling into the demon's head. A look of surprise momentarily crossed the features, and then it exploded, splashing blue-white light across the armor as it disintegrated. Blessed silver...

The man groaned, and started to stumble back to the house, pushing a mailed hand under the helmet to massage his temples. The sound of the magnum had quite nearly deafened him, and had done nothing good for his headache. The headache that always accompanied the dreams…

Exe offered a silent prayer as he turned toward the Evans house. Thanking for his fortune in taking the demon by surprise, and that no other Hunter had arrived to claim it as prey. Things would have gone badly if that had been the case.

He slipped inside the house, the door incredibly, impossibly loud in the silence, and though the gunshot had been louder the sound of the door overshadowed it. He held the knob for a moment, staring blankly at the door, almost as if studying the smooth whitewashed wood.

Sirens were blaring somewhere in the distance as he stumbled toward the couch, passing out just before he reached it, and sprawling across it uncomfortably.

He slept, and for the first time in a long time, he had no dreams.

(--)

"What happened last night?" Lily asked softly. It had taken some convincing to receive permission to question Exe alone, though it had finally been granted. She was concerned, not just for him, but that something had been going miserably wrong.

The sun sprayed from the east, banishing the remnants of the fog, and splashing across the two people. Exe closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall of the house. He had flattened himself next to a window, and while he wore the opera mask, he was unarmed. It was neither a feeling he was used to or comfortable with. "I dealt with a problem. Hope to your god that no one else comes to investigate." Lily failed to notice that he avoided saying whoever this 'else' might be.

"What happened?" she pressed. If it were something magical, and out of the ordinary, she would tell the Headmaster.

Exe ran a hand through his hair. "It was a demon, created in the image of man. I need to do something. If it please you I will take my leave. I will be back before sunset."

He walked slowly away from the yard, allowing the aroma of the flowers permeate his senses as long as he could.

And then he was gone, though Lily was already composing her letter to the Headmaster in her mind. The old man liked her, she thought. She hoped he liked her enough to humor her by listening to her. If she were particularly lucky, maybe he would know what was going on, though the thought of him not was quite inconceivable to her on some level.

The letter was in the air shortly thereafter, winging its way across the country to the bearded master of Hogwarts.

_A/N: Ho. Oklina, this seems to happen: the first chapter is undoubtedly impressive (or not, as the case may be), and then I lose whatever it was in the second and later chapters. Probably because I do the first in a short period of time, or something. Your praise, while much appreciated, is likely undeserved, but my thanks. On a completely unrelated topic, how does the recommendation thing work anyway? The Vampire Story Hunter, to "get it" you would have to be privy to the workings of my mind, and that's something no one wants. However, I will give this, if (as in this) no male Veela exist, _how do Veela reproduce pure-blooded? _DOG-SEJR, whilst it is delayed, I will. jon3776, if you want to see what their relationship was really like, pay more attention to the flashbacks than Exe's ranting. And everything is already in hell; it'll just take a while to completely realize it. gaul1, if so, my aim has been achieved._

_That's 38 degrees Celsius. Comes out to 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit._

_The pertinent lyrics of _Shame_, Exe's theme song:_

"If only see myself reflected in your eyes

And everything I've hoped to be or ever thought I   
Died with your belief in me so who that hell am I?

Once I swore I would die for you   
But I never meant it like this

I don't know if I'm real without you   
What is left of me without you?   
I don't know what's real without you   
How can I exist without you?"

_More or less.__ It could be tweaked a bit more accurate, but such is life. The lyrics are ripped out of context a bit, and then mashed together, but that's all that's pertinent. And if you google for the _good_ site, with most of the lyrics, it's the fourth on the list._


	5. Chapter Five

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

_A/N: See end of chapter _"Battle doesn't need purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight"

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Five:

_He staggers out of the building, healed yet not healed. The stone walls of the castle shudder ever so slightly as he exits. The castle knows, knows and feels sorrow._

_He will not return. If he does, he will bring blood and hatred and fear and death. And the castle wants him to return. Too long have the wizards grown weak, defiling its halls with their complacency. It is not merely that, the castle misses him. He has not been one of those that have grown lazy and weak, despite all the opportunity to do so._

_He stumbles through the forest, and everything within knows to avoid him. His mind is lashing out already, and it hurts--oh, god it hurts. He has already attempted suicide, the woman of the hospital found him with a knife through his wrist, almost catatonic._

_His face is dry. The tears have been shed, and it has not helped. The pain is not gone. Crying is a futile activity now, and he has abandoned it as such. But the pain…_

_He is clear of the forest. He does not know where he is, or how long he has walked. The sun is rising slowly, casting his shadow many times his height down the plain._

_He slips on a rock, barely catching himself before he falls. It is wet. Has it rained? He wonders._

_Something falls to the mud. Yes, it must have rained. It is his wand. Just shy of a foot, clean but not shiny. It reminds him of what has happened to _her_. His anger overflows, and the next instant his foot, wrapped in inexpensive brown sneakers, has crashed into it. The crack is still resounding as the anger fades, and he realizes what he has done. Carefully he falls to his knees beside the pieces of the wand. Somewhere a phoenix is in pain._

_Two pieces of the wand are above the mud. Together they total perhaps eight inches. Half buried stalks of grass surround the fragments. Something crawls on six legs over the mud, nearly invisible against the brown mud. Carefully trimmed nails slip into the thick mud as he picks up the pieces. They come out dripping, light tan, and under them has collected a film of filth. She is going to be angry, he thinks, and then remembers that she will never be angry with him again._

_He stumbles as he starts to run, attempting to leave the thoughts behind him. The knees of his trousers are soaked, and filth is beginning to encrust them. He chooses to focus on these, carefully noting each inane detail as he runs, wondering when he fell. The remains of his wand are clutched in his right hand, and he pays them no attention._

_He falls, and the sun is directly overhead when he rolls over. He has tripped on the edge of the asphalt, and it takes longer than it should for him to realize what he is lying on. His pants have dried, leaving only dry muck, stiffened pants. He still clutches the bits of his former life. His hair is streaked with something, he can't tell what._

_The parking lot is empty. The lines have faded, though the places they overlap look almost fresh. It is not a large parking lot; there are perhaps five rows, with the spaces for eight, ten cars per row. The building the lot leads to is blank, small and squat. The white paint is drab, though it glistens slightly. It has not yet dried, and this arouses his curiosity._

_He moves forward slowly, approaching the small door. It is made of wood, and on it is carved the message:_

"Thou shalt **break** them with a rod of iron."

_In great, slashing capital letters. The word 'break' has been gone over several times, and as a result it looks deeper and wider than the others. It is slightly intimidating, and because he has never enjoyed being intimidated, he turns the handle and enters._

_The inside is well lit. Because this is so, he can clearly see that the entire contents of the building are a hall with no doors that leads to a stairwell descending into the earth. The hall is a beige color, and he touches it carefully. The paint in here is dry._

_He starts down into the pit, and feels as if he is descending into purgatory. There is no sense of foreboding, just anxiety as he proceeds down into the darkened hallways. He knows that this is foolish, dangerous, and unlikely to end well. He knows that any sane person would leave now._

_He also knows that he will not die. He also knows that he will welcome the final peace. He also knows, somewhere in his mind, that **she** is dead, and he is with her already. And he loathes himself, and he loves himself, and he hates the world, and he loves the world, and he loves her._

_Sound trails up from below, and he stops, tilting his head slightly and pressing closer to the wall. It is damp down here, although the paint is dry. It is also cold, and dark, and he almost feels at home. He slowly extracts something from his pocket, it is a small coin. His thumb strokes it absently, and then he kneels, before rolling it down the stairwell._

_He waits, listening to a song only he can hear, frowning slightly. Long moments pass, and at last he starts down the steps, his fingertips brushing something cool and smooth as his hands curl into fists._

_The sound is louder now, and it is a piano. The song is haunting, it speaks of death and pain and suffering and the song does not end, but goes on and on endlessly. And he realizes that if he had a song in him, this would be it._

_He continues, each step taking him slightly under fourteen centimeters down into the earth. There are many, many steps._

_And then the music begins to fade, though it is not as though the player is stopping, but as if he has passed the origin. He pauses, and turns partially toward the entrance, which he can no longer see. The song only he can hear is still playing, and after a moment of confusion he descends further. The anxiety grows, though there still is no danger. It feels as though the world is going to collapse on him, as if this stairwell is weak, and he is all that is needed to destroy it._

_He continues down._

_He doesn't realize it as it happens, but slowly the slope of steps levels off, and then quite suddenly he realizes that he is walking on a level surface. It is still dark, and his coin is elsewhere, he knows. He wants to go up, is afraid of what lies ahead. The fear spurs him deeper._

_It is a long time before he finds his coin. And then, it is not on the floor._

_Orange eyes burn at him from the darkness. His coin is not shining, there is not enough light to reflect, though he knows the owner of the eyes is spinning it in her palm._

_"Witch…" the voice is harsh, though not entirely unpleasant. It is an angry voice, and he takes an involuntary step backward. "Why have you entered the most hallowed halls of the Organization?"_

_He fails to respond, utterly entranced by the eyes._

_"Answer me, witch…"_

_Her voice, he abruptly realizes, is accented with French, though it is very faint. It reminds him, and he presses one hand against the side of his face._

_The cool smoothness of the contact makes him jerk it away quickly. He does not want his hands near his face._

_And then his arm is pinned to the wall behind him, something through his wrist. Absently he realizes that it perfectly impaled his watch, even as the pain rushes through him. It is cleansing, and his lips curl away from his teeth angrily._

_"Tell me, witch…"_

_His right hand goes for his wand, and he remembers too late that it is broken. His hand falls limply, and then there is more pain as something long and hard finds its way into his chest, and then through, and then into the wall behind him._

_He makes a strange, gurgling, gasping sound. His hand reaches up, and he starts to pull at it, forgetting everything that he could do to remove it. Then his hand falls limply, and he slumps, allowing the pain to render him unconscious._

Exe rolled off the couch, coughing as he awoke. The pain felt almost real, and he rubbed his chest unconsciously, precisely where the blade had penetrated.

"_Thrice_ damn," he whispered softly, and only he could hear the taint in his voice. He hoped that showed _it_ was going away. He would gladly suffer through what his voice was becoming, if only _it_ would go away.

He forced himself to his feet, two fingers brushing idly against the metal that adorned his belts, and then jerking away as if burned by the contact. It was a habit he thought he had broken long ago.

The man struggled in the general direction of the kitchen, hoping for a drink. The house was light, and the clock claimed it was already half past noon. That was strange, he rarely slept in. Then again, the megrims rarely came, had not been frequent for almost a year. It must have been the price of the orb, he thought. The price was high, as he had known it would be.

It took him a moment to realize exactly who was sitting at the kitchen table. Shock was his first reaction, fear trailed that closely, and utter rage burned almost immediately afterward. His hand moved with intense precision, bearing testament to the anger, as he drew a cup of water from the tap.

"Hello," he said when it became clear that the man was not going to breach the silence. He tried to force his voice into a semblance of normalcy, though all he succeeded in doing was bringing the taint further up, and he winced at the sound.

"Hello, Exe, if I may call you that." It was clearly not a question.

His teeth ground in his mouth, and he thought desperately. "You may call me Kinzoku," he managed to utter at last. It was something he would respond to, and he dearly hoped the man did not know the meaning.

"Very good, Kinzoku." The twinkle in the old man's eyes was growing stronger.

Excessively formally, he asked: "May I ask how you are called?"

The man smiled benignly, "I am Albus Dumbledore."

"Well then, Monsieur Dumbledore, the formalities have been exchanged. May I then ask as to your purpose?"

"One of my students, Lily Evans, has told me that you 'hunt things that exist outside of the law,' I believe were her words. How exactly are you affiliated, ser Kinzoku?"

Jade eyes fixed on the back of their owner's hands. "I do not intend harm upon your student. If I intended harm sir, she would already be dead."

Blunt, the old man thought as he watched the other finish his glass of water and proceed to wash the cup by hand. He let several long moments pass, allowing the younger man to put the cup away.

"Which was not my question."

"No," Exe agreed calmly, "it was not. And nor will I give you the answer until you halt the farce of respect you put on."

"Farce? What farce do you speak of, ser Kinzoku?"

"Don't put your innocence on," he murmured as he slapped his right hand down on the table next to the wizard's with a strange thud, "I do not intend harm, but I will bite back. Don't hurt me, and I won't hurt you."

He waited for a moment, before turning his head away from his elder. "If that is all…"

The wizard spoke, "You have yet to answer my question."

"You," Exe responded mockingly, "have yet to drop the farce." He stepped away from the man, and remained silent for a moment. "I apologize," he interrupted as Dumbledore began to speak, "I was being disrespectful," he said, in an apologetic manner.

Agonizingly slow, he pulled a chair out and sank into it. "Please, what was your question, once again? I have brought shame upon me and mine."

Dumbledore's eyes widened, in awe of the humility expressed. "What organization are you affiliated with?"

"I am not, truly. I was of the Organization, but have yet to… Never mind."

"The Organization?" The bushy, white eyebrows furrowed. "Which organization?"

Exe paused. "It would be easier to show you, I would expect. May I be granted a moment in which to gather the requisite article?"

It took the elder man a moment to decipher the overly formal phrasing. "Of course, ser Kinzoku."

The elder watched as Exe ponderously stood. He thought the boy looked as though he had carried a great weight, for far too long. He knew too, that such perceptions were rarely correct.

His fingers distracted him as he waited for the younger man. Yellowed slightly, too many lemon drops. Withering, slowly as was his lot in life. Few lived to the age he was, and fewer succeeded sanely. He himself had not escaped the harsh years unscarred, and he often wondered why the young Thomas Riddle had changed from the devious boy he had been in school, to the outright evil he was as Lord Voldemort.

Had he asked, the person sitting in the next room, running his fingertips slowly over the emblem on the cloak could have told him. When the boy returned, however, the sigil on the cloak distracted him completely.

"You are one of _them_?" he whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in years. "One of those… demons?"

"_We_," Exe responded calmly, "would call you and yours the demons. As I have said, however, I intend yours no harm. Please do not provoke me."

The chair nearly flew, so quickly did the aged wizard stand and draw his wand. "You know that I cannot allow you to leave. You have harmed us long enough!"

"You can," Exe disagreed, "and will allow me to leave. Not without a price, naturally. No," he added, at the disbelief evinced in the man's face, "not monetary compensation. I can offer you something you will achieve nowhere else."

With eyes narrowed suspiciously, Dumbledore asked, "And that would be?"

"The services of a tool. The powers of a dead man. Myself." Exe's voice was not depressed, nor angry, merely resigned to the truth of his life.

"And how can I trust you?" demanded the elder. "You are one of those monsters. How am I to accept your word?"

Exe's hands curled, wrapping deeply in the material of the cloak. "Do _not_," he snarled, "think to imply that my honor is less than yours. That would be a most grievous err." Silence occupied several moments, and then he seemed to realize what his hands were doing. Meticulously he uncurled his fingers, and smoothed the cloth with the sort of caress oft reserved for a lover.

"What _are_ you?" was the first sound to break the heavy silence.

Exe's left hand touched the side of his face, fingers trailing slowly down his cheek. "What I am," he said, eyes focused outside of the room, "what am I…" His right index finger traced the symbol on the cloth. "I am a…" and his voice trailed off, before returning in French, "a bound without a master. A claimed without a life. A _yuuvan_ without a center. No better than a golem."

It was perhaps fortunate that Lily interrupted, and from there the room returned to, if not quite a comfortable state, one of small understanding.

_A/N: Right-o. A-man, confusing? 'Tis supposed to be. Too many flashbacks? Let's do a little math here. I am the author. You are possibly a somewhat interested reader. Clearly we can tell who is greater than who with regards to how the story progresses. And nothing's supposed to be explained, it all comes together. There is a reason for him being sick, but tell me, have you ever had a heat stroke? No? Then don't try and tell me he should recover the _day after_ he wakes up. Chaotic-Lord, I shall try to do the story justice with my most unworthy hands. babychaos, Fleur is correct, H is a mystery. It doesn't really matter anyway. rickW22, this is up as of now, not before, not later._


	6. Chapter Six

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

_A/N: End of Chapter_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Six:

Exe sighed, and slid slowly onto the bench. King's Cross, platform nine and three quarters, read the identifying sign above. He was once again bedecked in his armor, though it was largely hidden by a long, duster jacket pressed upon him by the Headmaster, white at his insistence. His hands, and by extension his gauntlets, were concealed by an oversized pair of gloves. White, though upon the back he had, through use of a black marker, emblazoned the sigil of the Organization. He wore not his helm: that was in his bag, which resided next to his feet.

Madness, he thought, was clearly what his offer had sprung from. Why was he protecting these people? They would become those he had sworn to destroy.

But he had given his word. And his word was never broken. "Insanity…" he whispered.

His hands folded, and he laid them on his lap pensively. He was tired, so very tired. The dreams came without fail, often more than one a day. As a result, he slept often, but woke up rarely refreshed. Even on the way to King's Cross, he had nearly passed out. Strange, was his opinion of the heat. England rarely had such dry heat.

He stifled a yawn, though his eyes slid closed. His boots, possibly the least conspicuous article of clothing, stayed anchored in place even as his muscles went slack. The clock read eight thirty.

The opera mask concealed his eyes, though admittedly it restricted his field of vision severely. The collar of his duster, buttoned in contradiction to the heat, was turned up in a most unfashionable manner, hiding the matching collar of his armor. His revolver was holstered inside the jacket, inconvenient, but there was nowhere else to place it. All of the material, in combination with his armor, was rapidly increasing the temperature within.

His breathing slowed, and while he did not allow himself to sleep, he did fall into a somewhat restful state of half-awareness. He watched the world through heavily lidded eyes, as if it was a photograph that had been over exposed. People were ghosts, there and gone, leaving only residual white images to bear testament to their existence. He thought he saw Ronald Weasley pass, and the thought angered and amused him. Angered, the man had watched _her_ die… Amusement, he was coming unstuck in time…

He had been told it would take years for it to happen, the distorted perception of time. Seconds as eternity, years as instants… But of course, it had been years. And now, there was time…

There was nothing but time.

The world returned to colour and focus and he lethargically pushed himself to his feet. "Merci, Mademoiselle Evans," he murmured absently, eyes focused somewhere beyond the train. The clock read ten fifty.

Exe allowed her to lead him onto the train, and find a compartment. She had, evidently, been reserving one, for it was empty, with only her belongings. He slid his bag on to the overhead rack with some difficulty, and he dreaded the thought of having to retrieve it. His comfort was that Lily was only slightly taller than he was, and it brought a frown to his mind, if not his impassive face.

"So selfish…" he whispered, almost drawing a curious look from Lily, who apparently decided against it after she had already started turning, and cancelled the motion into a roll of her head, cracking her neck audibly. It was something she did periodically to annoy her elders, who claimed that it was a terrible habit, and wanted her to stop. They were probably right, but she didn't care. Most of the time it was only done when they were annoying her.

As Exe most certainly was. He had not explained why he was following her, merely given her an impassive look when she asked, and otherwise ignoring the question. And then he had done the one thing that irritated her to no end, he had brushed his hair behind his ear, whereupon it had immediately fallen forward. It was such a bloody narcissistic gesture, and for mostly this reason she refused to cut her hair above her shoulders.

In addition to her distaste for the action, there was the matter of the family honor to deal with. Short hair was absolutely forbidden on females within the Evans family, supposedly a tradition that dated back to the Medieval Ages, though she doubted that greatly. Her parents, she knew, had high aspirations for the family. She pitied them.

Exe had removed his mask at some point, she noted, and slid it into the pocket of his jacket, the likes of which she had never seen. The strange, curving symbol on the back of his gloves distracted her, and once more she wondered about it. That was a question which too had received only an enigmatic look and a dull blink. Reticence was all well and good, but she thought she might prefer Potter's boasting and posing to the silence that surrounded Exe. It wasn't that the silence was oppressive, quite the opposite in fact. The silence put her at ease, but there was something profoundly disturbing about it.

It was like a story Potter had once told her, much to her displeasure. It involved an old man, and a rat. The rat, he had claimed, was living under a house, eating the owner's food for them. They had requested help, and the man had come. He had brought with him only a thirty-eight special, wrapped in greasy leather to keep the rust off. Potter went on to tell of how the old man, face drawn and eyes swelling, cheeks burning red, the sure sign of a drunk, had paced the length of the building, leading and following the rat. An hour, on the dot, and he had grinned a smile of chipped and yellow teeth, and put a bullet through the floor. Then he had packed and left.

The rat, Potter said, had a hole precisely between its eyes.

Lily had thought he was making it up. Now, in the presence of the enigma that was Exe Kujo, she couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't. Not that she believed he had been there, no, she thought perhaps he had learned it somewhere. But that was what the man reminded her of, and she couldn't dismiss the sensation.

She edged to the far end of the compartment.

Exe didn't blame her.

It was perhaps fortunate that their silence was then intruded upon.

James Potter, summoned as though he were the devil himself by Lily's thoughts, swaggered into the compartment, tailed by a somewhat gaunt Sirius Black, a Remus Lupin who's eyes drooped heavily, at which Exe realized that the full moon had been a mere two nights ago, and a surprisingly confident, collected Peter Pettigrew.

The thoughts of the moon turned Exe's mind to the Lady and her Lunacy. He was not exactly concerned, not precisely. She was important to him, though after their introduction he had tried to stay out of her way whenever possible. It had taken weeks before he had been forced to talk to her, and then only because his phobia was causing small problems.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by Lily's quiet plead for assistance. Immediately, with all the speed he had not exhibited for weeks, he was on his feet, jacket undone, and arm inside, halfway finished drawing the magnum.

There was a moment of silence as Exe's arm snaked its way out of his jacket, leveling easily at the younger children.

It dawned on Potter first how short the armored man was. Despite the gun, which he didn't recognize, he burst into laughter. "Are you supposed to be threatening?" He demanded, gasping the words out through his giggles.

He didn't notice Remus Lupin shying away from the gun as if it burned him. It was not just the sight of the gun, which he recognized as _very deadly_, but the blessed silver hidden in the chambers stung his eyes and his nose. That someone on the Express knew the truth, one needed blessed silver melted from a cross—any religious artifact worked, but crosses were the easiest to obtain in silver—to kill a werewolf was profoundly disturbing. That it was in a loaded gun more so.

He didn't notice Peter Pettigrew deflate at the sigil on the gloves. The sigil, by itself, largely meant nothing. The armor, and the white, was what made it significant. Peter knew exactly what it meant, and how dangerous it was. _They_ had, after all, been the ones to kill his parents. Butchered in front of him, by the demon with the orange eyes and all in black, with the emblem emblazoned on her back in white…

He didn't notice Sirius Black step forward, smiling mockingly and reaching for the gun, not knowing what it was. His mistake was one of ignorance, not of malevolence. Yet a mistake it was.

What Potter finally noticed was the impact of the butt of the gun upon his best friend's temple, and Black falling to the ground, a surprised look in his eyes. "Hey!" he snapped, irritated with the presumption of the short, white clad individual.

Upon closer inspection, Exe could not understand why anyone had ever mistaken him for the conceited individual that was James Potter. First, and through years of experience he could tell, the boy's hair was not naturally messy. In fact, it was rather straight looking, though not very nice looking. Ratty, he thought. Second, James Potter was tall. Easily five feet, ten inches. Maybe six feet. He had always been a short child, though perhaps malnutrition had contributed to that. Third, Potter's face was broad, though not open or generous, quite closed and selfish, with lines around his eyes that betrayed the cruel nature of his most common expression. There were other differences, but he did not bother exploring them.

Clearly, he thought, another case of nostalgia colouring memories.

His left hand slid his mask into place, deliberately bringing the back of his glove into view. Remus Lupin slid aside, staying carefully near the door, most interesting. Exe wondered if he could feel the blessed silver. Peter Pettigrew slouched out, moving backward and accidentally walking into the far side of the corridor, narrowly escaping being run over by a pair of second years.

James Potter took one look at the glove, snatched Lily's hand, and began to drag her out of the compartment. "S-stay back!" he shouted, fumbling for his wand.

Cracked under pressure, Exe observed. Another trait they did not share.

"Let. Me. Go!" Lily snapped, tugging fruitlessly at her hand, trapped in Potter's markedly less than iron grip.

Potter found his wand, and aimed it shakily. "Don't come near us!"

Exe considered what to do. Lily had requested assistance, and now wanted to be free of Potter's attentions. Potter was pointing the wrong end of a wand at him. It was not a hard choice.

He slid the magnum back into his jacket, and waited silently. Tension flowed out of three people, and Exe thought several unkind things about their teachers. Lily pulled her wrist free of Potter's grip, and began to storm back into the cabin. The boy reacted, snatching her arm again.

"What do you think you're doing?" He demanded harshly.

Lily was still not enjoying the attentions of the boy.

Exe acted, was in one moment across the intervening space between himself and the wizard in training. His right hand curled around the boy's shoulder, and his left slapped against the boy's unprepared stomach, just beneath his stomach, directly on the floating rib. It was not a damaging strike, just an exceedingly painful one.

Breath exploded from the student's lungs, and he collapsed, going limp in Exe's hand. Lily fled into the compartment, moving into cover. Smart girl, Exe thought as he lowered Potter to the floor, mouth opening and closing without making a sound, or indeed breathing.

"For future reference," Exe mumbled calmly, removing the boy's wand from his hand and turning it around, "you hold this end," and placed the wand back in the child's hand.

Then he turned, and slowly dragged himself back into the compartment, where he sank again into his seat.

"Who was that?" He asked quietly.

"James Potter," Lily sneered. "And he's a bloody rotten scumbag."

_A/N: Another torturous chapter. Lovely._

_The Zig, Potter is not of Hellsing. I did, however, blatantly paraphrase the line. Nice to know someone caught it. Sticky2.U, no actually I did not call Shezza88 a she. Sorry to burst your bubble like that. In fact, I only used the word "she" in that chapter five times. Kyra4… you're making me blush. I have to say that I'm not as good as you people claim, but I thank you very much for your praise._

_Duster jacket: If I understand right, this is an ankle-length jacket. There is a slit in the back, up to about one's knees._


	7. Chapter Seven

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Seven:

The train slowly, achingly ground to a halt, the scream of metal on metal rending the air as the conductor killed the engine. Sparks splashed across the gravel beneath the tracks, cooling rapidly and leaving only small iron shards to mark their existence.

Exe's eyes clenched shut at the maddening cacophony, one hand curling tightly in his multicolored hair, the other digging deeply into the cushion of the seat. His lips spread slightly as the muscles of his jaw tensed, and he mentally pleaded for the agony to halt. "Stop it…" he pleaded softly, unaware that he was vocalizing the thought, "Please, God, stop…"

The sound ignored his prayers, and continued. He curled over, pressing his head to his knees, through the thick jacket. He started to pray that he would die several indeterminably long seconds before the sound halted.

"What," Lily asked, "was that about?"

Her companion ignored her completely, standing carefully on his seat to get his bag. She frowned in irritation, and retrieved her own with far less effort, turning to disembark and catch a carriage. If the bloody poof wanted to be that way, he could bleeding well be that way, she thought rather vengefully.

The man in white stalked up the train instead, toward the head and consequently the conductor's booth. What students were left on the train vacated as he stormed through, perfectly measured steps somehow more intimidating than raging stomps would have been. He did, in fact, hear the whispers about the encounter with the Marauders, though he did his best to ignore them. The tale they had told, embellished largely by James Potter and Sirius black, made him into a seven foot demon with a crown of six horns growing out of his skull and great, bloody claws. He thought he might have heard something about 'the number of the beast', but that was likely his own imagination supplanting an idea he associated with evil.

He entered the conductor's area to find the man whistling cheerfully as he waited for the rest of the students to leave so he could go measure how close he had come to hitting the end of the track. Last year he had shaved off a half inch, and he wanted to know if he had topped that. The man was slightly surprised when Exe entered, and moved to object, before the bag hit the baseboards, drawing his attention just long enough for Exe's hands to grip his robes, lift him off of his feet, and slam him into the side. "You," he heard a cold voice, nearly corrosive to the ear, murmur, "are _never_ going to do that again. Are we clear?"

In his fear, irrational anger took control of the conductor. "How do you expect to get me to do that?" He demanded shortly.

Exe spun, and keeping the man off the floor with some difficulty, slammed him into the widow. It didn't break, and he did it again. He dropped the stunned man, before gripping him by the hair and collar, and putting him exactly at eye level with the shards of glass still in the pane. "I will take your eyes." He paused to let the statement sink in. "Are we clear?"

"Yes," the man whimpered, "Yes! Yes! I understand! Please don't!"

The duster shuddered as Exe took a deep, calming breath. It wasn't enough, and he took up the Patterns again, forgetting for a moment to pull the wizard away from the window. He dumped the man on the floor, remaining perfectly still as he forced the anger down and bottled it up.

And then, slowly, he turned away to leave, picking up his bag as he exited. He had lost his temper again. He could try and say that it was the lack of sleep getting to him, but that was an excuse. He did not make excuses. That was the territory of the Judge. The thought that the Judge was still at the school of magic disturbed him, the lunatic he had known was not something he could reconcile with the image of a student.

Thoughts of how exactly to contact the Organization filled his mind, and before he realized he had left the train, he was standing in front of an empty carriage. He turned to look at the Thestral tied to it, eyes dulling further at the sight. He considered his options for almost a full minute, and then turned, walking toward the castle. It wouldn't take him long; he would probably get there before the sorting finished.

But there was no hurry. There was never any hurry now. Not anymore.

He didn't know when it started raining. The only reason he noted the descending liquid was his difficulty in moving as his feet sank into the mud. He ran a hand through his matted hair, wincing as he accidentally caught a knot. This kind of rain annoyed him more than any other, just enough to get his hair damp and clumping, but not enough to get it properly soaked.

He continued through the mud, deliberately ignoring the solid and much easier winding path in favor of slogging as the crow flies. The rain did not cause him to increase his pace, for he had nothing that could be damaged by it, excepting perhaps the ink on his gloves. It would take far longer before the gunpowder within his shells failed, and even then most of the bullets would work after drying correctly. Beside which, they were under his remarkably dry jacket. Charms were probably the cause of the water bouncing off.

The abrupt appearance of the main gate to the castle didn't register in his mind in time, and he walked into the solid wood before realizing what it was. He did not properly remember the walk up to the castle, as the landscape blended easily after time. One forest was like another, but no two trees were the same. He shook his head, scolding himself for being oblivious.

He slid inside, glancing uneasily toward the main doors to the Great Hall. A moment of internal debate later, he turned, and began tracking mud and water through the corridor, looking for the side entrance. Argus Filch stood there often, and he wondered if it were part of a secret network of passages that only the janitor knew about. He worried a moment about what the man would do if he was found tracking water, before remembering that Filch was not yet employed by Dumbledore.

Several minutes later Exe slid as unobtrusively as possible into the Hall, eyes flicking casually over the assembled students. The tables were larger than he remembered, something he found strange. His generation should have had more students than a world in the middle of a war.

Survey of the students complete, he turned to the teachers. There was McGonagall, younger, yet still as stern. Flitwick, with darker hair, and certainly a bit more of it. Hagrid, no less immense than the man who had rescued him from the Dursleys, though apparently he had not yet found a fondness for that hideous soup-catcher he called a beard. Someone he vaguely remembered sitting in place of the potions professor, wide dark eyes and a dark, shaved head that would probably have meant more to him if bleeding. There was no one else he was positive he knew, though he had vague recollections of two more, dead. Of course, he had seen a lot of dead people, so that was nothing new really.

He looked back at the students, now looking for specific people. Lily, sitting at the end of the Ravenclaw table, the seats next to her empty. The Marauders, less Sirius who Exe suspected was in the Hospital Wing, surrounded by obnoxious children, and being loud despite the Sorting continuing. It took him a bit of doing to locate the Judge, who he only eventually recognized by the glasses in combination with her typical androgynous outfit. The only reason he recognized the glasses was that he knew they were fake. He had never been curious as to why the Judge wore fake glasses, and she would not have told him anyway. Narcissa Black, who was staring at the reflective plate before her. Had it not been for the fairly attractive girl with her arm slung around the blonde, Exe might have thought she was taking after her namesake. To his surprise, Bellatrix Black was the owner of the arm around her cousin, and, if he wasn't mistaken, was groping Narcissa.

"That's interesting…" he murmured, watching a bit longer to make sure there was actually groping going on. After confirming it, he turned away. There were more interesting things going on in the hall.

The Sorting ended and the meal began with little preamble from the Headmaster, who, upon further reflection, Exe thought looked preoccupied. He wasn't quite sure why no one was noticing him, particularly those at the staff table. A survey of his surroundings gave no obvious answer.

He slunk away, heading toward the gargoyle that was the entrance to the Headmaster's office.

That was where the old man found him after dismissing the student population.

"Hello," Exe said quietly.

A wary look entered the wizard's eyes. "What do you need?"

The white mask hid the man's blink. He didn't think he needed anything, other than the one thing he couldn't have. "A room."

"Yes, yes, of course." Albus the Absent-Minded Wizard. "You do need a room." A moment to think. "Why didn't you enter the Hall?"

"I considered it a poor idea to advertise my presence to the entire school. Enough of them know already."

"Why?"

"I rode the train."

"You _what_?"

"What exactly did you expect me to do?"

The old man wasn't sure what he had expected Kinzoku, Exe, whatever his name was, to do. Something less abysmally foolish than what he had done, at the very least.

"I am not a Witch," the man said.

"Of course. You're male."

A withering glare that the old man couldn't see.

"Of course, your room. I believe we have a free one behind a portrait on the third floor…"

"No. No portraits. A door."

A room to a living space with a door… The old man wasn't sure Hogwarts had any of those.

"Well, I shall see what we can do. In the mean time…"

"I will not pass through a picture," and the voice was raging, "I will sleep outside if I must."

Dumbledore thought. Outside would put the man out of the way most of the time, and in the way of an attack. Not a bad idea.

"Very well. I shall set up a residence for you then."

And the man known to Dumbledore as Kinzoku exited slowly, following a distant nod.

_A/N: Si vis pacem para _

_A-Man, most apologetic about my unclarity of phrasing. When I said author, I simply meant of this particular fiction. I apologize for the error. Some heat strokes are worse than others, am I justified in assuming that you were not in armor when you had yours? There are best-selling authors who can't write for beans, case in point: Terry Goodkind. I also consider Robert Jordan sub-par because he spends pages upon pages describing a leaf embroidered on a dress. And I detest shounen anime with the intensity of a thousand white hot burning suns. I also apologize for my misunderstanding of your comments, and desire to tell you that I did not interpret it as a flame, just slightly more abrasive criticism than I usually get, which is a good thing. I never said you cursed at me either. I did not say that you said he should wake up the next day—I said that he would not be completely recovered immediately upon awakening. Or I intended to, at least. He is sick because there is a problem with his immune system, which I cannot explain lest I give away a plot point. Of course I'm assuming about you, I can't do anything else. It is impossible for me to not assume things about you, seeing as I don't know you. I did not intend to insult you, and I apologize most profusely and beg forgiveness. I thank you for your gracious method of response on what was clearly a misunderstanding on both ends.  
Serpent King, he isn't a member of this Soloman Organization, though that's close. The Organization is purely of my own invention, though based on several other things. Apart from which, I haven't seen enough of WHR to write it feasibly.  
afan, you do give me far too much credit. I know that any editor who would give my works the time of day would read the first six lines and tell me it was trash. And I uh, don't understand Fiction Alley. _


	8. Chapter Eight

**Witch Hunter**

_By CrimsonNoble_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Eight:

Exe woke, and was unable to move.

He knew, consciously, that it was most likely not a spell. He knew that it would have been impossible for anyone to get through the door to his rooms. He knew that very few of the students fully understood what he was. He knew that those that did made it a point to stay as far away from him as possible. He knew that it was most likely sleep paralysis, the nerves connecting his brain to his muscles not functioning properly.

None of this stopped his panic.

And so, half a minute later when he could finally move again, his breath was coming in short, frantic gasps. His eyes stung with sweat, which slicked his face in an unpleasantly oily manner.

He trembled as he sat up. This place was going to drive him mad.

He pressed a hand against the side of his face, feeling the clammy texture of his flesh, and his eyes slowly focused on the shower fixture across the room.

Dumbledore had not understood his phobia of portraits, though he had at last acquiesced and created a living space for the half-blond outside of the castle. It was little more than a one room box, but it was enough. It could have been the old man's plan all along, Exe conceded, but thinking too deeply about it drove in circles, covering distance without proceeding.

And so he didn't think about it.

He stood very slowly and began to prepare for the day.

He showered without thinking about it, still avoiding looking anywhere but the ceiling. He remained silent, allowing the cool water to cascade down his relaxed body, the soap loose in his clumsy hands. His hands were numb, only the barest hints of sensation remaining in his fingertips.

Exe lowered his eyes to the shower head, and the water falling from it filled them before trickling down his face. His hands lied to him now…

In one movement he both shut the water off and flung the soap back into its ledge.

Ten minutes and he was dressed. Two more and he was sitting in front of his room, waiting for the sun to rise, one leg fully extended, the other curled up with his hand resting on his knee.

And that was where the memories came.

_It is dark and there is pain._

_He feels strangely at home. Pain is something he has known as long as he can remember, and the dark has been his refuge always. It has always been the light that heralds pain._

_The cupboard was dark. The rest of the house never was, trying to make up for the eternal night it conceals. The rest of the house was where the rest of them lived. They who stole his innocence first and they who scarred him last._

_He thinks this place is a hall, but he is uncertain. The pain is distracting._

_Then the pain is gone, and there is only the light thud of wood hitting concrete. He cannot see in the darkness, though he can feel exquisitely._

_He slides away from the wall, alert now, knowing that the one with the coral eyes is still here. The coin tells him so, and he thanks her for not releasing it. She is not sleeping, but nor is she awake. That is about to change._

_The coral eyes are suddenly open, and for a moment he believes that they always have been._

_"You are alive, Witch…"_

_He remains silent, sliding around the coral eyes on feet of liquid silver. They track him as if the owner can see in the lightless corridor, and he shivers at the thought of such monstrous power._

_"Answer me, Witch. Why do you still come?"_

_Silence is her answer, and he slowly removes his broken watch. A moment later it is flying through the air toward the eyes._

_Then there is a spark as another blade impales it again, and he sees the owner of the eyes briefly. Pale skin is all he can make out, pale skin and dark hair. And burning coral eyes._

_He falls to the ground, anticipating an attack…_

_And there is pain as the attack lances sharply into his back. He is lifted by his hair, eyes half-closed._

_"You are interesting, Witch. Amusing, even. I think I will consider you…"_

Exe screamed as his eyes shot open. He fell from his seated position, knocking his helmet from his head in an instant of panicked madness.

There was nothing on the grounds when he stood. The groundskeeper, not Hagrid, the groundskeeper, was elsewhere, attending any one of the numerous problems that cropped up in the school. He was probably aiding the Care of Magical Creatures teacher.

He ignored the world, walking laboriously toward the castle. He didn't notice the unnatural quiet of the forest. He didn't notice the soft noises of the freed Thestrals fleeing. Wind whipped through his hair, streaming it out to the side, his helmet forgotten before his hovel.

The doors parted for him, and he slipped into the entrance quietly.

He alighted upon a small wooden chair in a dark corner of the room, and settled in to wait. That was all he needed to do now.

It was all he could do. All he had was time.

Exe's eyes half closed and time passed around him. Students filled the hall and vanished, reappeared and vanished. Again and again the students were and then were not. Translucent images registered in his eyes, and he watched in slight confusion as the afterglows faded completely.

He focused sharply, to find that the sun was low. The sun was low in the east.

He had lost a day without realizing it.

"This was how it began, wasn't it?" He asked the empty air, addressing a ghost of memory. "First time, and then the rest."

He stood with some effort, cracking his neck for the first time in days. His elbows followed as he stretched. The ache in his eyes had once again returned. Exe rubbed at them slowly with his thumb and forefingers. Pops emanated from his shoulders as he rolled them lethargically. His stiff ankles protested as he began to trudge out of the corner.

He stumbled slightly, blinking rapidly as his vision began to go black.

Fear gripped something in his chest, and he spun, or tried to. His body betrayed him, moving too slowly and tangling his legs, throwing him to the floor in a heap.

Glazed eyes regarded the stone floor in a disconnect fashion while he began to process that he had fallen. He had fallen. The phrase repeated in his mind, beating his resolve. "No…" he whispered, pushing himself to his hands and knees. "No."

_"You understand what this entails?"_

_He is lying prone, chained with ceramic manacles to the stone table. The statement is made in French, and his eyes meander toward the hard, lined face before he replies. "Yes," he says, his French almost natural._

_"No," the other counters. "You do not. You think this will merely seal it. That is wrong." His eyes slowly blink. "It will seal it, yes. But it will corrupt it. You can control it now. The seals will hold for now. For years if you are lucky and do not use what cannot be sealed._

_"The seals will break. This alchemy," the other's hand indicates the symbols scrawled across his arms, "is only temporary. It is weak. A year, half a year, I could make ones infinitely stronger."_

_"No," harsh French, "Now."_

_"Fine," the other sighs, German now, and he does not understand. "Fine," again, in French. "It will be done now. But this alchemy…_

_"Your power will not remain static, as it would if you left it as it is." A harsh glare in response. "It will grow, twist in the corruption. When the seals break, you won't be able to control it. You will die."_

_His eyes are dull again. "Good," he says flatly._

_"If you want to die, kill yourself."_

_"I am not allowed. Suicide is a mortal sin."_

_"Wrath is one of the Seven Deadly."_

_"This isn't Wrath," he says after a long pause, "I can't feel that."_

_The other snorts._

_"Then what is it?"_

_"The beginning of madness.__ He did the same."_

_"He forgot," the other corrects, "not sealed."_

_"Do it," he commands._

_The hand rests on his chest, and once again there is pain._

"Never," he whispered, standing carefully. His fingertips traced the seals, invisible now. "Never."

He began to drag himself out onto the grounds of the castle.

The sun rose, beating relentlessly down as it always had.

-------

Exe didn't hear her as she approached.

Lily frowned. He wasn't moving to her eyes, duster piled against his body. From behind he looked like a mannequin, set up to impersonate a human. He became the victim of an insane taxidermist.

"Hello?"

Exe turned his head to her. His legs, however, remained folded toward the lake.

There was something terrifying in his gaze. It was not that there was anything threatening there, or that there was hatred. It wasn't even that there was anger or fear. It was that there was nothing.

Something twitched uneasily in her gut.

"Hello."

Several moments passed before she realized it was directed at her.

"I came to ask how you were."

She dearly hoped he couldn't hear the tremble in her voice. He couldn't.

"I see."

Lily waited.

Exe's hands returned to press his knuckles against the rock between his knees. His eyes closed lethargically, and as his head tilted forward his hair drifted before them.

After several moments she finally asked, "How are you?"

"Adequate."

Lily pondered. "Which means?"

"That I am dying."

A longer pause ensued. "This is a good thing?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Softly then, "I'll be freed."

"Freedom?"

He did not reply.

"Well?" she demanded impatiently.

After a moment, "Language is sacred. Don't abuse it."

Lily blinked in confusion. Language… sacred? The concept was absurd. Language was just a tool. Tools were meant to be used. Tools were simple. Language was, in fact, one of the tools that sharpened with use. Foolishness.

"What are you talking about?"

Dead silence. Exe slowly eased himself to his feet. "It doesn't matter." It hurt. After… _that_, language became one of his favorite things.

He stepped off the rock calmly, hitting the ground unsteadily. He almost fell.

"You all right?"

He straightened slowly. "Fine."

"Why are you here?"

Exe lifted his hand and stared at his gloved finger almost curiously. "Because Exe is for death and death is for every one of them."

A long silence. "What in God's name are you talking about?"

"Don't do that," Exe said sharply.

"Do what?"

"Profane His name."

"What are you on about?"

"Don't talk about God." He suppressed the desire to add _heathen_ or _witch_.

"Why shouldn't I?"

Empty eyes turned back to her. "Because I requested it."

Her eyes narrowed. "Then no."

Exe nodded perceptibly. "As you will."

Frustration burned momentarily in Lily's mind. It was impossible for her to believe that Exe was so spineless; no one could be _that_ pathetic.

"Stop doing that!" She snapped.

"Doing what?"

"Being a wimp," she said after a moment's consideration on how to best phrase it.

"Oh."

Frustration returned in an instant. Lily was not accustomed to being simply brushed away as insignificant, even Potter, the great prat that he was, didn't do that. Hell, Petunia didn't do that. It was not the way things worked.

"Bravado," Exe said, and Lily realized with a start that he was almost behind her, "and being defensive are unnecessary for someone who trusts enough in their own strength and beliefs.

-------

"Hey!"

He continued walking, ignoring the voice. It was not like he cared about anyone who would talk to him, after all. The white swirled around him, embracing him like winter.

"You!"

Annoyance flashed, though his carefully crafted mask revealed none of it. Indeed, outwardly he gave no sign at all that he realized the voice was directed at him. His pace neither increased nor decreased, his hands remained only loosely balled, and he continued looking forward.

"Stop, damn it!"

He could no longer ignore the voice, as the owner had dropped a hand onto his shoulder and pulled. Obligingly he went with, pivoting on the heel of his right foot. The wand alarmed him, and his training took over immediately. His open right hand slammed into the boy's chest, and before it reached full extension rotated, so that he could dig his fingers through the soft flesh and muscle to grip the floating rib. He pulled sharply, using the action to send him into another rotation, as well as drawing the revolver from his hip. He fanned the hammer once as he came around again, and the bullet struck the attacker in the right side of his chest.

He stepped back, left hand on the hammer of his revolver, eyes automatically seeking anything to attach a threat level to.

Exe found only himself and the assailant in the hall. The enemy…

He looked carefully at the boy. It took a moment to dig up the name, but when it came it was so obvious that he hit himself for not realizing it. James Potter.

_A/N: Nothing. Itachi is an insufferable badass._

_Paladin3030, yes Narcissa and Bellatrix are sisters. Think about the main pairing for a moment, s'il vous plait._

_Jean-Claude Iscarot, WHR has the STNJ. I've only seen through episode ten or thereabouts, so I don't really know much._

_A-man, you still have my apologies for a misunderstanding on my part. It took me a while to fully digest your comments, and at first I was rather angry. That passed, and I calmed down. Mostly. And yes, Harry is Exe._


	9. Chapter Nine

**Witch Hunter**

By CrimsonNoble

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LP, HP/H

Chapter Nine:

"I don't believe I hired you to kill my students."

He considered making excuses. He decided against it.

"James Potter isn't dead," he said instead.

"He's dying."

Exe pondered. He didn't think the headmaster was too stupid to comprehend the difference between dead and dying (in James' case, about an hour), but then, the headmaster employed him.

"I said I did not intend your students harm. I am here protecting them from the broken one. Any damages they receive outside that are not a violation of the contract."

"You're protecting them from Voldemort."

"That would be what I said."

The headmaster decided to let the error slide.

"Nonetheless, I shall be forced to put you on probation…"

"Probation?" Exe almost smiled. "You're going to make the defender of your children leave? The one the Board does not know is here? A member of The Organization?"

"I did not say leave. We have dungeons for a reason."

Exe thought about that. Dungeons would hardly be a problem to escape. However, they would certainly be an annoyance. An annoyance he really didn't want to deal with just yet.

"But can you keep me there, sir?"

"Of course we can."

"I will not let you force me to lax in our contract. Good day."

"You will not leave my office."

"Bargain, then."

"Bargain?"

Exe looked at the old man as though he could not understand why he had to ask. "Make a deal."

"What position are you in to deal?"

His revolver appeared in his right hand, without seeming to have moved through the intervening space. "The one where our present deal does not guarantee your safety."

"This is no way to bargain."

The gun returned from whence it came. Exe seated himself and removed his mask.

"Then the bargaining is begun. None may enter or exit until it is done.

"Make your offer, sir."

Albus Dumbledore wondered what had just happened. The… monstrosity had done no magic. But something had sealed the place.

"Ser Kinzoku. I, Albus Dumbledore, shall represent Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the following dealings."

Exe nodded slightly, approving of the attitude.

"Monsieur Dumbledore. I, Kinzoku, represent myself."

"This institute will pardon your transgression in return for complete protection from all hostility, so long as you survive."

Madness. "Such a request is generous, but to serve such a prestigious assignment for so long a time is too much an honor for any man."

"Perhaps, then, we should allot time spans for guardianship."

"Ahhh, but Monsieur, so much responsibility on so young a head. Your faith is perhaps too great."

"Be that as it may, but the belief is well founded."

"What is found may be forgotten."

"Forgotten is not unmade."

"In return for my extended service, the institute will forget its child's indiscretion, and penalize my person with a two-week abandonment."

"So it is said."

"So it shall be."

As the air became easy to breathe again, Albus Dumbledore smiled. His eyes twinkled cheerily. The poor boy had trapped himself.

"Would you prefer a director to indicate to you what might source the threats you shall defend the children from?"

Exe donned his mask. "There is only one threat I defend your children from, Monsieur. And I shall defend them from him until your death. Extended, as they say."

He turned his back on the wizard. It was the greatest show of disrespect that the man could not dare challenge.

And he fled.

------

Exe strolled down to the field. He watched the walls, carefully. Hogwarts changed, they said. But it never seemed too different to him. Like something wanted him to know. How strange.

And here the death started. Blood on the walls. Blood on all the walls. Blood forever on the walls. Blood forever in the walls. _Blood_…

He tried to convince himself that blood was safe now. He had forgotten. Forgotten, not sealed. Of course, things forgotten were not impossible to recover. Not for a person of power. Ergo, not so safe. Not yet. Would be fixed, soon.

Primary goal. He needed to define these things, or he would forget and fail. Primary goal. Fulfill contract and contact The Organization. Make them believe he was. The second goal could be achieved within the bounds of his contract.

Secondary goal. He needed to pursue the imperative. Always.

So close to being done, and then this. This new world, repopulated. His _mother_.

The Lady had asked, once, if he could kill his parents if they were not dead. He had no answer.

Focus. Too much time and too little to think about, but this needed doing now. He could spend other time not focusing.

He continued walking as he passed the border of the Forbidden Forest. He had two weeks. Much could be done in two weeks.

He wondered if The Lady was already a cantankerous bitch. Doubtless.

-----

Lily Evans slipped out of the Hospital Wing with practiced ease. It did not take a genius to realize just how badly off James Potter was. The thought that this was, in some twisted way, her fault sent a delighted shiver running down her spine. Whatever James Potter suffered, he deserved.

She had wrought this upon him.

"So is it true, Lily?"

She nodded to the girl with glasses. "Yeah. He's still bleeding. She's probably going nuts in there; there were potion bottles everywhere around his bed."

Glasses frowned. "Well, now. That's interesting."

Lily watched her turn around. "Hey! Where you going, Jane?"

"Library. And again, it's Judge."

Psycho, she thought. Girl needs to get laid. Now how to go about it…

-----

Exe hit the wall much harder than he expected to. It seemed that in some ways, at least, The Limper was a better guard than The Lady. Praise to the blessed armor be.

It still hurt like a bitch.

"_Arretez_, Limper!" Even so, having invoked the Name, he threw his hands in front of him.

It turned out to be a good thing, as The Limper hit him with another thaumaturgical blast. It was, he decided as his arms dropped, smoking, evident that for all The Limper was not particularly clever, he was the biggest kid on the block. Exe decided against testing just how much power The Limper could pump into an evocation.

"Who are you?"

The Limper's voice was like raking nails over raw stone.

"I am The Executioner. I need to see The Lady." And then he forced some sound humans were not meant to make out of his mouth. After, he coughed and spat blood on the floor of the tunnel. It hissed and popped where it landed, invisible in the dark, the tunnel now lacking the light of spontaneous magic. "When did you start storing thaumaturgy?"

The Limper apparently ignored the question. "Surrender your weapons and follow me."

Exe removed all the weapons he could. The Limper supervised, cold fire burning in his hand. Not even he could see in the dark so well as to check for weapons of a more hidden variety

Instead of handing the weapons directly to The Limper, Exe slammed his elbow into a certain brick in the wall. A thin panel shot forth, and he laid his gear there, before backing away. The Limper was exactly the man who would see a direct transfer of the weapons as a threat. And any threat was a full justification to execute.

Which would be mildly troublesome. The Limper knew how to go about executing properly. He'd had his head cut off once, after all. It hadn't seemed to impede him much.

So he followed The Limper at a careful distance; not so close as to be threatening, not so far as to be plotting.

Exe hadn't really expected to be lead to The Lady. However, if he had not Named her, more than likely The Limper would not have taken him anywhere. So when the corridor terminated in a rather small, uncomfortable chamber, he wasn't particularly surprised. He was mildly alarmed by the presence of almost half of The Organization. It did not seem right that they should all congregate in one spot.

Time to convince them.

-----

Lily sauntered into the library. Whenever Jane said she was going to the library, she meant the Restricted Section. It was always for the best to give her some time to find what she needed and get out before showing up. The girl got a little bit enthusiastic about showing people the books there. The problem lay with the fact that they weren't supposed to be in the Restricted Section.

Jane worked better alone than in company. She got distracted by people too easily.

"Hey, Jane. What'd you find?"

The girl snapped her quill. "Judge. And nothing. Absolutely nothing applicable."

"Nothing?"

"Not a thing in any of the books talks about unhealable wounds."

"What was the inapplicable thing?"

"A footnote on Veela. Injuries inflicted by them are notoriously difficult to heal without specific magic."

"Well. That's helpful."

"Yes… Veela…" Jane stood up, and wandered back into the recesses of the library, muttering something about Veela to herself.

"No such thing as a male Veela," Lily said. It might bear inquiry though. She decided to find Flitwick. He was more than just a dueling champion, after all.

-----

Exe tilted his head. His case presented, he had only to wait. It wouldn't be long.

Either they would believe him or end up killing him. Belief was more likely. It was not, after all, a totally unprecedented occurrence. And he did not lack for proof. But their choice of whether to believe him or not was entirely up to them.

The Lady broke from the cluster of hunters.

"In light of your case, we will further consider the potential veracity of your tale. Until such time, you will be overseen by a current member of The Organization. As per your request, that will be me."

Exe nodded.

"There is only one other request we have." She pause a moment, coral eyes focused dangerously in the thaumaturgic glow. "Show us the color of your blood."

Exe removed his mask and accepted the proffered stone. He pressed the point against his face, and raked it down.

The Lady nodded, approvingly. "Your cooperation is noted.

"Welcome back."

The Executioner replaced his mask.

_A/N: It's late. I was lazy. All future review response will take place in my forum… see if you can find it. 's called My Shite. _

_ShadowMagik_—_The one who calls him Witch is an OC-The Lady (see chapter 4 for poetics about). Fleur is dead at that point in the flashback. And yes, there will be relationships… but of what sort, it's hard to say._


	10. Chapter Ten

**Witch Hunter**

_by_ _CrimsonNoble_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books until HBP.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, deviant sexuality, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LE, HP/H

Chapter 10:

The Executioner sidled through the forest. It was dark, as forests were wont to be. The darkness mostly hid him, however much it could.

He heard The Lady, mocking him as she always had. Given, he couldn't sneak up on much. Given, he didn't particularly care to. Given, he didn't need to.

Not that The Lady was particularly subtle. Her eyes stood out. She liked it that way. Perhaps too much. And she was prone to leaving survivors. She claimed it helped terrify the hunted. He wasn't entirely sure that was a great idea, but The Lady's choice was The Lady's choice.

She peered around a tree, meters ahead of him. Her hands danced.

The Executioner could not read the signals at the distance. The Lady was probably indicating guards, locations, and net population. He didn't really concern himself with the numbers. Instead, he checked to ensure his revolver was loaded, having already replaced the single empty casing, and then to insure that he had his reloads conveniently at hand. Then he drew his blade.

The Lady entered the clearing before him. She took down the first two guards before they could sound an alarm. However, in her fashion, she had naturally made enough noise herself to wake the entire camp. She kept moving, carelessly. A variety of spells streaked past her, testament to the accuracy of the wizards.

The Executioner walked in just as slowly as he always had. Being that the camp was distracted by The Lady, who had reached the other side and was busy slaughtering her way back through, the first eight wizards fell without warning the others. The ninth cried a warning before he too died.

He didn't bother to try and avoid the Killing Curse from the next would-be victim. It crashed against his armor, lifting him from the earth and flinging him in a graceless arc, to be terminated by a well-placed tree. He lay very, very still.

Then he rolled over. He coughed, splattering blood on the forest ground. Where it landed, the vegetation promptly burst into flame.

The Executioner stood up. With slow, deliberate movements, he drew his revolver and took aim on the wizard that had cursed him. The man never knew what ended him.

The wizards appeared to come to an agreement that their losses were mounting too great, and to remain was futile. The cracks of apparition echoed through the forest.

"That was a waste," The Lady said.

"Cultivating fear isn't a waste."

-----

"You are correct, Miss Evans. Male Veela do not exist."

Professor Flitwick reclined in his chair, the pile of books bringing him up to the level of the table. He amused himself by levitating a pair of ink bottles and having them dance around his person.

"Professor, that makes no sense. If male Veela do not exist, how are pure blood Veela born?"

Flitwick looked at her. He settled the bottles on the desk, and leaned forward. "Now why would a young lady be interested in that?"

Lily glanced at the ceiling for an instant, and then focused on her head of house. "For the sake of knowledge."

"Do me the respect of not lying, Miss Evans."

She didn't have the shame to blush. "James Potter is in the Hospital wing. The Madame is apparently unable to heal him."

"Ahhh." Flitwick jumped to the floor and circumnavigated the desk. "Common sense would dictate that Veela do not reproduce pureblooded, would it not? Of course, this is not true. Now and again we see the birth of pureblood Veela.

"The Ministry has deemed their reproduction illegal and dark. Nevertheless, the Ministry still utilizes the rite as an ultimate punishment. Tell me, Miss Evans, why are things termed dark arts?"

That was elementary. "Because they strip the victim of choice or cause undue harm, and there is no benign way of using them."

"More or less. In the case of Veela reproduction, it would be the first reason you gave. It strips the victim of choice." Flitwick entered full lecture mode, wand waving and things flying included. "The victim is chosen to give the Veela a child. In the process, they become the protector of the Veela. Toward that end, they are given certain… gifts, would be the term, I suppose.

"You are aware, of course, of the existence of Elementals?"

"Yes. Beings with some small amount of control over a substance."

Flitwick nodded. "That is what common knowledge dictates, yes. Of course, it is false. That is for another day, however. The Veela's protector is appointed an element, with which to protect their master."

"What if the victim does not want to protect the Veela?"

"That is why it is classified as the dark arts. The victim cannot _not_ want to protect their master. The original personality is replaced by the need to protect their master unto death."

-----

Exe walked out of the forest.

It was a familiar path up to the school. His hovel was only off it by a few meters, front door shut and locked, though not magically, never magically. Of course, that left it open for student interference. Not that he would miss the tampering, a magically locked door was never locked the same as a non-magic door.

The Lady had elected to remain in the forest. He decided not to ask after her intentions in there. The concentration of magical beasts was far too high for her to have any other reason.

"Nothing," he repeated, "Unnatural."

Wrong, something in his head told him. He pretended he wasn't listening to it and knowing it was true.

Faux-Zen control crushed the false thought out. He was not against that which was unnatural because it was so. He turned his mind to the truth and forced his mind to stare. He was against it because…

The burning hatred nearly tore away the lock on his power. The lock survived. It crushed the power deeper.

Something inside wrenched.

He kept walking.

He entered the school. Proceeded to the Headmaster's office. Ignored the gargoyle.

And he waited.

The Headmaster entered and seated himself behind his desk before acknowledging Exe.

"Ser Kinzoku. Your two weeks are completed, and you have returned. Quite punctual."

Exe tried to say something. Instead, he unleashed a sound that nearly rent his mind in twain. It was nails on a chalkboard, crushing ice, scraping Styrofoam, all in one package. He could only logically describe it as rust, corrosive to the very mind.

He stopped trying to talk.

"That was enlightening," Albus Dumbledore said.

Exe nodded slowly, busy listening to something in his past.

…_in its corruption…_

It was entirely unexpected. Damn Judge.

He stood in the only way he could. He left, to return to his post.

As he walked past the open door to the Great Hall, the commotion within attracted his attention.

He gazed down at a copy of the Daily Prophet. The headline spoke of an attack on an Auror training camp.

The Executioner felt the warm, squishy feeling of success well up inside him.

He moved to a corner and seated himself.

And he watched.

-----

Lily cornered Jane in the library. The girl was reading the Daily Prophet with no small amount of interest.

"What do you think?"

"Lily." Jane acknowledged. "Clearly not the work of Voldemort. No dark mark in the sky, survivors who apparated out long after the attack began, all bodies mutilated through nonmagical means, and a fire to cover the job."

"Yes," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "But what do you _think_?"

"I think many people are going to die."

And that wasn't morbid at all. "You should talk to Exe. You two would make a fine pair." And you might even relax a little.

"Exe?"

And it was rather odd how many people didn't seem to be aware of his presence. "Yes. The one who put Potter in the hospital wing. He sits in the entrance hall. Rooms out on the grounds that aren't really protected?"

Jane frowned slightly. "Show me."

Lily gestured for the girl to follow and left. It would be so funny if the two ended up in bed together. She wasn't quite sure why the idea annoyed her.

"That guy," she pointed at the man in the duster. "Go. Talk to him." And Lily stepped backward behind one of the statues to watch.

Jane walked forward with an unnatural grace Lily had never seen in her before.

She stood in front of Exe without saying anything for a long while. Then she began to talk. And she continued to talk. Exe tilted his head back to look at her face. Lily moved closer, trying to hear what was going on between them, but stopped just out of reach as Exe's eyes focused on her. Jane turned and motioned her closer.

Lily leaned against the wall casually, as though she was merely waiting for someone. After a moment Jane turned back to Exe and continued to talk.

Exe's hands started to twitch, and Jane watched. Exe looked back at the girl as her hands started to move too. It was almost like they were talking to each other with their hands. But that, of course, was impossible. Even Aurors did not have actual communication in their hand speech. She got thoroughly bored in short order.

Jane clapped twice. It was the most enthusiastic display Lily had ever seen from the girl.

And then she left.

Lily caught up to her as she headed for the dormitories. "What was that all about?"

Jane grinned. It was extremely unsettling. "He's going to introduce me to some… people."

-----

Amusement tinged Exe's thoughts. Yes, that would be the classic Judge. He could not have pictured her as a student.

It was apparent that she never had been a student.

_A/N: Infodumped. So now you know._


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Witch Hunter**

_by CrimsonNoble_

Summary: People cope with grief in different ways. Harry Potter doesn't cope well. But when he's caught in a magical backlash of immense power, he's banished from all he knows and finds that, sometimes, not everyone is guilty of the sins of a few. Post Hogwarts.

Spoilers: All books until HBP.

Rating: R for violence, mature sexual themes, deviant sexuality, harsh language, etc.

Pairings: HP/FD, HP/LE, HP/H_  
_

Chapter Eleven:

He stood, silent. The orange light of dawn danced around him, laughing in the tongue of birds, banishing the soft night with a bloody edge. It played tricks with his face, too, stretching his mouth into an enraged sneer and then a demented grin. It struck his mask at just the right angle, lighting up what only dawn break light could—sigils depressed ever so slightly into the alabaster surface. It pranced through the forest, sliding between the trees in an attempt to hide from the All Mother it was tied to.

The forest opened up before him, wrinkled, jagged, broken edges a deadly warning as to how far one could go before he was no longer in the lands of men and his life belonged only to the trees. Nothing moved within but the light and the shadows.

And speaking of shadows, one particularly vengeful one flitted between the trees, uncomfortably fast. The persistent flicker at the edge of his peripheral vision nearly forced him to turn and look, only his faux-Zen control keeping his eyes locked ahead. The movement was precisely timed for one to begin to think the flicker was all in their mind and turn away before it happened again.

Jane had no such control. Her head kept twitching at the movement. He was sorely tempted to break her neck to stop the movement. It would go on for a long while, for The Lady had secreted herself deep within the forest, where she had disposed of a vast nest of rather oversized arachnids recently. There was supposed to be a wolf pack in the forest somewhere as well, which The Lady said she was listening for. How she was doing that, while killing everything she came across, mystified him.

"Who is this?" After a moment of deliberation, Jane decided that the voice was not _unkind_, it was downright _cruel_. It promised pain everlasting, with personal attention.

Jane shivered with pleasure. That was what she longed to be.

"This is The Judge," The Executioner's hands indicated. She was not surprised to hear the name from him. She had told it to him, after all. She was surprised to hear the way the name rolled off his tongue, as though it were not just a name, but a title. She _liked_ it. She wanted to hear it said that way by all who knew it.

"And she can do what?" The voice bit at her soul and gnawed on whatever bits it couldn't tear free. Jane fell a little more in love with it.

Instead of saying anything, talk was cheap, after all, Jane stretched out a hand and opened the first door that came to mind. The Lady looked through it and laughed. Jane smiled. It was her second favorite door. That the vicious, vaguely necrotic looking possessor of the voice approved delighted her.

"A useful skill… but not worth attention. Unless she can do more?" The insult from the voice drove into a place Jane had never felt before. It didn't hurt, precisely. It annoyed her, certainly, but the disappointment in the voice… that enraged her.

She slammed her hand into The Lady's armor, having no idea just how much restraint The Lady was using to not tear her arm off, and opened there too.

The Lady smiled. The girl had torn her scale mail apart, but in doing so had revealed more than she found it wise to. How terribly reckless she was. But that could be fixed. There was time.

"Take her," his hands commanded, "and leave. Her absence will be noticed soon."

The Lady arched an eyebrow, emphasizing his lack of authority. "You do not command me."

"Do it," The Executioner croaked out, sending the unprepared Jane to her knees, and staggering The Lady. It might have sent him to the floor, but he had locked his knees and deafened himself as much as he could. Nonetheless, he felt as though gravity had decided it would play by its own rules, and to hell with Newton.

"I think it'd be best if you never spoke again."

The Executioner nodded.

"We shall take our leave of you, then. Come, girl." The Lady snapped her fingers, and lead Jane into the forest.

He turned away, and stared up at the school. At the bricks, which sang in the wind a song of sweet silence and need. He tilted his head as though listening to the cries for release, to empty herself of the fecal matter cloying her being.

To be interrupted by a sky-shattering roar of thunder. It was unexpected, to say the least. Not ten minutes ago, the sky had been as a freshly painted wall, empty of nigh-everything but the edge of the sun-disk. Now… it was as though the sky had torn itself apart, an illusion rent to pieces, pieces shrinking as the storm expanded, filling the sky with shadow and a threat-now come to fruition-rain.

The storm screamed unnatural. It was most certainly not a fey-storm, which would have built for days and he surely would have known of. It was not the work of The Limper, his style was screams and fury and blood and fire. He would not settle for a mere storm. Stormbringer, perhaps. But she should have been incapacitated for longer yet. Not having a head would do that to a spell-caster. That left the more mundane of magics as potential causes.

Job to do, he thought.

The Executioner slogged his way up to the castle, the sudden torrent of rain transfiguring earth into mud far faster than even the Headmaster could. It was almost a certainty that The Lady would not be returning before the cause of the weather arrived. It was entirely certain that whoever drew the clouds out was prepared to deal with the muck of their creation.

Numbers on their side. Preparation on their side. Weather on their side.

Surprise on his side.

Breakfast time. The students: unprepared for the assault, unaware of the _unnatural_ nature of the clouds. The faculty: aware of something incorrect. All of them: lost in the mist of confusion and the forest of ways where to go any way would proceed, but to escape impossible.

"Problem," he signed with exaggerated motions.

"What, precisely is the matter?"

He indicated the sky, its howling fury threatening to tear the castle apart. "Abnormal," he signs. "Freakish. Unnatural. Fake. Something comes." Exaggerated gestures and simple phrases so to aid the comprehension of the old man. Still, it took him time, too much time, to understand the meaning. Soon, there would be no time. "Get them," vaguely encompassed the students and faculty, "gone."

"Do you have a plan?" The Headmaster should have known better than to ask.

"Kill them all." He motioned as normal, unconcerned with comprehension from any other party.

He strode back to the entrance hallway, preparing relatively swiftly, forgoing many of the ritual practices which made the violence sacred. His duster found itself lying in the way between the entrance hallway and the great hall. His gloves separated and lost each other on separate sides of the suits of armor lining the hall. A tactical blunder, he catalogued. Animatable armor. Touchy thing to neutralize. Bit of a dodgy thing to do on the fly, though, and very difficult to program. Perhaps those could be turned.

The Executioner considered his options for a long moment. Coming to a decision, he moved so that when the hostile intruders opened the doors, he would be just missed by them as they passed, and drew the _Zanna_. The edge gleamed as lightning tore the sky apart, outshining the intrusive rays of yet-morning light. He stared at the blade; the viper etched into its surface, and filled his mind with one more prayer before battle. For victory, he prayed, for strength, and for death to sate the burning in his chest.

When the doors opened, he brought the _Zanna_ down upon the first hostile to enter the way. It was not an especially sharp blade, the edge was taken care of, but not legendary. It still clove the man-and it was a man, he observed even as he focused on _everything_ he could see-in twain.

The Executioner shoved past the body, taking the head off another man with an awkward backstroke, driven wholly by deranged force, spun and tore through another man. The blade flicked and flickered, first clouding another's sight with blood and then robbing that of him permanently. It continued, lodging in someone's neck, and he cocked his wrist just _so_, and from his gauntlet sprung a blade that he decapitated the blind man with.

Perhaps four seconds elapsed between the first stroke and the decapitation.

A jet of red light knocked him back a step, and he cross-drew the revolver, thudding a round through some man and then the man behind him, and then the man behind _him_. It tore the hand off an especially unlucky man, and finally burrowed deep into another's thigh, snapping the bone into pieces and dropping him to the stone. He fired seven more times, moving endlessly between shots, knowing to stop, to kneel, to roll was suicide of the highest order. Only motion, endless motion, forward motion, his dance of life and violence, could bequeath even a chance of surviving. The revolver ended back in the hip holster, and he stopped at last, shoving his free hand out to catch an incoming bolt of green death. It balled in his hand, and then drained away.

The Executioner lowered his arm to his side, unusable from the elbow down. He tilted his head slowly, drawing _Zanna_ up to lie over his shoulder. Nothing moved. That was not supposed to happen. People did not just catch the _Avada_ _Kedavra_ and stand there to look at the person who cast it. It _did not happen_. It ran against—_everything_. A collective paralysis fell over the masked, robed men as the suit of armor with the sword stalked forward, adjusting its grip on the weapon. It swung the blade in a graceless arc, shearing two men into four pieces by pure brute strength.

Someone decided it would not do to continue staying still, and blasted a curse at the armor. The aim was shaky, and the spell went wide, striking and turning the head of one of his companions into blood and vapor.

But a spell doing its intended purpose, the robed men could deal with. They burst again into motion.

The second spell to land a solid blow on the armor should have shattered it and filleted the man inside (he was only a man, could only be a man, would die like all men). Instead, it knocked the man off his feet, and sent him flying in a shallow arc backward, bouncing off the ground and tumbling with a screech of metal on stone and sparks setting a play of shadows across his body. Spells lashed out, though the more clever of the wizards (for wizards they were, most definitely wizards, no other used those ridiculous wands after all) began animating the suits of armor.

The Executioner regained his footing with no small amount of difficulty, barely managing to duck into the Great Hall ahead of a stream of curses, his helmet God-knew-where. He leaned heavily against the wall, drawing his revolver with some difficulty and reloading it. He holstered it again, to facilitate the exploration of another of the pouches on his belt. He found what he was looking for, and stared at it for a short minute (no time to spare, no time at all, no possibility of reprieve or luxury of thought), pulled the ring with his teeth, and hurled it into the entry way, over the heads of the invading robed men. It detonated in midair and rained sharp and piercing death down.

He drew his revolver again, and turned to go through the door, carefully navigating the blood-death of the hall. He dragged himself out in front of the school, finding to his surprise, the Master of the wizards. He pointed the revolver at the man, wondering why he was there, at the school, where he should not have been, with such a small force.

A pair of green eyes peered from a window in a high tower, far from the entry. A pair, blue, spied from the high battlements. Hogwarts was not closing its gates. It should not have opened them in the first, and now it was not closing them. That was not as it should have been. Hogwarts was to protect its children, its students. Not abandon them to the ever lacking mercies of the Dark Lord.

"_Avada_ _Kedavra_," the Dark Lord said, flicking his wand in a dismissive gesture. The blazing light caught The Executioner a glancing blow, lifting him from his feet and sending him spinning and diagonally, the magnum torn from his grip as he flew, and crashed into the wall just to the side of the main doors. He slid limply down the wall, his head rolling in a daze as he came to rest at the bottom, blinking up at the man who reached down and lifted the massive gun, inspecting it casually.

He pressed it against The Executioner's forehead.

Proper form, he thought vaguely, staring up at his own gun, not going to be breaking his wrist. Maybe he remembers some—

Further thought was interrupted as the hammer fell. The muzzle flashed, scorching whatever was not destroyed in the passing of the .44 caliber slug. The head of silver and ebony hair jerked back, slamming into the wall of the castle, something thick and dark in the rain splattering and oozing down the wall.

The Dark Lord dropped the magnum, gazing in satisfaction at the black spot on the man's forehead, and snapped his fingers as he turned away, robes streaming around him despite the rain. More and more Death Eaters poured from the forest, summoned by their Master's want. The man with red eyes indicated the open doors of Hogwarts, and led the invasion himself.

Hogwarts did not close her doors.

_A/N: It's wrapping up. One, maybe two more chapters, et l'est fini._

_Oh, and y'all who're reading and not reviewing, that's cool and all, but it's kinda annoying that the review:hit ratio is less than 1:100._

_No, I'm not copping out and ending by killing off everyone important. This isn't being pulled out of my ass. I've had this planned for always. Stick around, maybe be surprised by the ending. _

_Review responses are still in my fucking forum. Have a gander if you like. Post if you want. Can access via profile. _


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Witch Hunter**

_by_ _CrimsonNoble_

Chapter Twelve:

It was not a good day, Albus Dumbledore thought. First, the House Elves had reported a sudden failure in their ability to pop from one place to another, some time before breakfast. It was disconcerting, certainly, but most likely a mere malfunction with the wards. It had occurred no less than three times in his tenure as Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was not really a cause for concern.

Then, the staircases began rearranging themselves. He himself had been stranded on the third floor for several minutes, and he had some measure of influence on the school. He could only imagine how difficult it must have been for the Gryffindors to get down from their tower, and they had caught the worst of it. This was not to say the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had it easy, the Slytherins however, had no trouble considering the layout of the dungeons.

_Then_, Ser Kinzoku had come in and ordered them all out. Luckily, he had not specified exactly what was happening, so it took some (albeit not much) time for panic to break out. At which point, they had already herded the students into the school, so it was mere directing the panicked mass, rather than fighting to stop it. It wasn't until he realized that Hogwarts was directing everyone to one location that he became concerned. He went back to check, and realized that Hogwarts was not closing off the path behind them.

He couldn't convince the castle to.

Then he'd watched the man get shot through his forehead by the Dark Lord. The use of a muggle firearm by Voldemort was completely unexpected. It showed a terrifying capacity for adaptation, one he thought Voldemort did not possess.

And then, Voldemort had called his army and invaded Hogwarts.

Yes, it was not a good day, Albus Dumbledore thought as he sped toward the students. Hogwarts had trapped them in one of the towers, and Voldemort was blocking the way out. Dropping the wards would do no good, he knew, they had no Portkeys, not even half of the seventh years could apparate, and even if that wasn't the case, Voldemort had placed his own anti-transportation wards over the school.

Voldemort's attack was a success. It was unexpected, as the Dark Lord would have known, and he knew that the Ministry would not arrive for minutes yet. Possibly up to an hour and change. It was not probable for them to hold out that long. He wondered how long it would take Voldemort to navigate the school. Most probably, he would send groups of Death Eaters to thoroughly check the floors and keep his main force on the first floor. While Hogwarts may have directed the students, surely Voldemort would not know that, and would mistrust the staircases.

Hold on and hope, he thought.

-----

The Lady strolled out of the Forest, having forced her charge to open a way to the Organization's hovel, and thrown her through that. Then, leaving instructions to get The Limper to follow, she had turned around and started straight back to the Castle, knowing and feeling the unnatural nature of the storm. Whether or not the girl could fulfill her duty, she didn't know.

She found The Executioner lying like a broken doll at the base of the Castle wall. She stood over his unmoving body, staring at the splatter on the wall behind him. It was quite pretty as impact splatters went, in a Rorschach's blot way. She reached down, twined her fingers through his hair, lifted him until his head was level with hers, and punched him. Had he been a human, it would have torn his jaw off. The Lady felt the not-so delicate bones of her hand shatter, dropped her mangled flesh-sack to her side, felt the shards rearrange themselves, felt them wind together and twine and connect and fuse and be whole again.

Right about then The Executioner's armor tore itself from his body, crashing into her chest. She decided that instead of standing still, she wanted to fly backward about three meters and skid along the ground. She also decided that she minded if her armor shattered and filled her torso with fragments of scales. The Lady lay still, staring up into the rain without blinking as she waited.

Then her lungs reinflated, and she gasped as she threw herself to her feet with a deft movement of her shoulders. The Executioner was standing exactly how she had been hoisting him before things had gone wrong. Even his hair was still standing on end.

She laughed.

His eyes opened, and they were flowing silver. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes and began to flow. His mask burst into flame where they touched, searing the flesh beneath in the intense heat, burning it to ash as the mask did the same. And beneath, there was something dark and writhing. Lightning flared and the glare from where his face had been blinded her for the instant before the concussion distracted her. When she returned her attention to her partner, he was facing away, his hair leaking color, losing all the remaining black.

The Executioner began to move, and where he did, the earth blackened and the grass evaporated.

The Lady laughed and followed.

-----

It was to the Dark Lord's great satisfaction that Hogwarts had fallen so easily. To add to his warm and squishy feeling of a job well done, the students and faculty both were off hiding somewhere inside the castle, doubtless in one of the towers or dungeons, but with no means of escape. As such, he had decided to delay the hunting of the students for some time, impatient though his wolves were to feed.

Already he had conjured his throne at the head of the Great Hall, replacing the staff table. There was, of course, the annoyance of the house elves to deal with. Their magic was quite potent after all, and to hunt them could potentially end disastrously. That meant he needed to neutralize them in some manner that was less wasteful of personnel. For which there were many options, which he could further consider at a later time.

For now, however, it was time to enjoy the feeling of success.

Which was ever so rudely interrupted as the doors to the Great Hall (which his Death Eaters had been unable to close, despite their best efforts), were shattered for no apparent reason. After all, it wasn't as though they were obstructing the passage of the man entering the Hall.

Incidentally, the man he had shot in the head, though without his armor or his face it took several moments to recognize him.

"Kill him," he said, vaguely indicating the man with his wand.

The man moved faster than he had thought possible, catching the spells without breaking pace. He watched with interest as the skin on the man's arms was shorn away, dripping from the metallic undersurface.

It reminded him of something. He wasn't entirely sure what. He thought harder.

He decided to worry about it later after the first stream of living silver tore from the man's back and cut one of his Death Eaters in half.

"Go," he commanded the wolves.

Which were not, strictly speaking, wolves. Werewolves, trapped in their inhuman form and bound to his will by a specifically altered Wolfsbane potion, courtesy of one Severus Snape, a man busy outliving his usefulness.

It was with some amusement that he watched them pile onto the man, latching on and biting deep. The man tilted his head and considered the wolves, finally stopping, before gripping one by the scruff of its neck and snapping it. He dropped the wolf, which landed, bounced off its side, landed on its feet, and leapt at him again, head dangling at a very strange angle.

The man caught it with the whipping tentacle, reaching over his shoulder to wrap around the wolf's throat. He faced it for a moment, before the color of the appendage changed slightly, and in about a second burned its way through the wolf's neck. The ribbon whirled around him, vivisecting the other wolves trying to hurt him.

There was a moment of silence. Then the spell barrage, which had halted when the wolves attacked, possibly to avoid drawing the fury of the wolves (Voldemort made a note to punish his minions for that, the wolves were replaceable and the Death Eaters disposable), returned in full force. Instead of dodging, the man began again to catch the spells, though the tentacle whipped around the room, unslowed as it tore through the robed men. In about twelve seconds, Voldemort and the man were alone in the Hall.

The tentacle was bright red, did not so much look covered with blood as made of blood.

He remembered…

_Her_, claiming him on a mountain of broken bodies.

_Her_, whispering in his ear, whispers of deadly rage.

_Her_, nearly unidentifiable remains on a morgue table.

The blood in his veins sang again.

What was he doing here, wasting time with wizards who could not hope to oppose him, he who could boil the blood in their veins with the merest of thoughts? He had no time for this. He had more important things to be doing.

He stood, walked down toward the man, and as the blood sang to him, he called back to it. The bodies of his Death Eaters jerked one last time as he took what he wanted from them. It whirled around him, wrapping him in its joyous embrace, welcoming him back. It danced around him, sang a song of loyalty and obedience. He started to pass the man, only to feel a hand collide with his chest. There was a moment of anger, and the blood swirling around him heeded his call, dancing and molding into a rapier in his hand. He twisted and moved it up toward the man, even as he felt something leave him without knowing what, only to have his strike gently redirected by a snaking tendril of metal.

The hand moved away, and for the first time he could take a close look at the man. Skin was hanging from his neck, with what looked rather like remnants of a face dangling by mere threads. Where he surmised the face must have been, there was only a blank expanse of writhing metal. A forest of silvery metal lay flat on his head, approximating hair. It draped down below the shoulders to a mass of belts and buckles, which were strangely undisturbed by the molten metal running down their front.

Then he considered that this has little to fuck all nothing to do with his intent, for this man was clearly of a magical nature, and as such, was of no interest if he was not obstructing the path of the blood.

The rapier dissolved, returning to the constituent stream of blood swirling protectively around him. It had him back. It did not intend to lose him.

He felt slightly empty… though he was familiar with the emptiness, it was more profound, a deeper emptiness than before.

He would have blamed it on his imagination, if he could have imagined he had one.

-----

The Lady followed her partner up the stairs, through the Castle. The Executioner guided her unerringly, in the only direction he could go. Forward.

It was without great surprise that she found him entering a room full of distraught children and horrified adults. She laughed, anticipating the bloodshed to follow.

She was understandably disappointed when, without so much as a gesture or final word, more ribbons than she really felt like counting tore from her partner, lashing around wildly, instantly executing the nearest of the students, as well as the majority of the faculty.

She stepped into the room, delicately placing herself in the middle of the largest available puddle of blood. "The Executioner and The Lady," she announced. "Representing the Organization.

"Thou shall suffer not a witch to live."

The ensuing chaos would keep her warm for many nights to come.

For now though, there was only the death. She leapt, a strangely insectile motion, and let the steel sing for her.

_A/N: What? You expected a man obsessed with revenge for his dead center of his soul to give it up? That's just overly optimistic.  
Yes, it's not quite done yet._


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Witch Hunter**

_by CrimsonNoble_

Chapter Thirteen: Terminus

The Limper jabbed the feet of his staff into the ground and leaned heavily on it's shoulder.

He gazed down over the small hut at the edge of the forest at the gate and blinked slowly. It seemed the wench had moved him to the correct place after all. That was a thing well done. Carpets had been a dodgy thing of late. After the Howler had vanished, and he'd lost his own to Stormbringer before he took her head (he stopped to remember the surprise in her eyes as it tumbled into his lap, stupid wench) there was not a replacement to be found in the seventh land.

He stepped on the closest wall of the hut and it collapsed around his leg.

That was just irritating. His hand dismissed the stone and wood, returning it to where it came from. He hoped dearly it had been a nymph forest the wood had come from. The thought of one of the sisters falling on them in savaged pieces was far, far too delightful to not be so.

He pushed his staff into the ground ahead of him and shoved forward again, lurching awkwardly on his lame foot.

Presently he was saved from further indignity of motion by the arrival of the one the Executioner had warned them of. A swirling nimbus of bright crimson danced from the old stone of the castle. He turned a deaf ear to the crack of thunderous rage that the stone reacted with to abandonment. Places should never have been imbued with sentience. The blight of these arrogant wand-wielders. They did not even realize what magic was.

The Limper extended one arm, fingers unable to straighten properly, and the last joint on the index finger permanently bent backwards.

The blood exploded outward, reacting to the impending doom of it's child master. It swarmed, ever moving, ever presenting a disordered front to the raw energy fouling the air. It held, heating slowly, seeking to call more to it, and finding it in the earth of the woods, where dark blood lay dormant, quiet, patient, and in the stones, where more blood rested, waiting for the return of the magics it sought to protect. But it was too far, far too far. It would not reach before the unfocused energy (now burning now shocking now slicing ever changing eternally restless unfettered) finally had it's way.

That would not be allowed. It could not be allowed. The child master was back, to lose him again so soon was not just unthinkable but wholly unfair and blasphemous. It could not happen, for if the last child master was forever lost, the end would come.

So though it pulled the blood from the forest and stone, it sought to steal the (magical powerful destructive restructive) blood from the offending giant.

The stitches that held half of the Limper's face in approximately the correct position (but not quite no seamstress was he and to ask would be weak and weakness had lost him his head and the wench) pulled as he smiled, and it transformed his face into something that not even the Lady could bear to look upon and smile at.

He recalled the malformed magic, and moved the staff in front of him, so the mouth frozen in an agonized shriek faced the raging blood.

Magic blazed.

---

The Lady smiled, wiping the blood off on one of the wall hangings. It bothered her a little bit that The Executioner killed so much more efficiently than her and she had never met him. It wasn't really anyone's fault, not really, and that was really what made her uncomfortable. Blaming the walking mass of molten metal was the easiest option, so she did that.

A well-aimed blasting curse that could have torn through the Great Wall shattered the head-blob. It flew apart, stopped, came back together, and the whistling tentacles continued to kill.

It continued in that vein for some time. Every now and then, to stave off boredom, she'd produce a blade and sling it into the battered crowd somewhere.

The old, bearded man had several students under a corporeal shield, though was far separated from the vast majority of the children, kept from the rest by the very stones of the castle having wrapped around his feet and refusing to let go. Intermittently argent ribbons would lash against the protective magic, at least theoretically keeping the biggest wand in the room occupied with defense. Though the students (all of them from the upper years, she noticed) were doing something, she couldn't see it having much of an effect. Nothing so far had, though she suspected that either some of the charms or transfigurations careening, some slower than others, around might have done something if they would land. Unfortunately for the children, The Executioner had his orbs at the ready and thusfar a faultless record.

She watched the oldest children conclude what they were doing and direct it.

The room flooded immediately. The Lady didn't bother gasping for breath. Instead she breathed normally as the water level rose up past her shoulders and up her neck. In the fraction of a second it took the level to rise over her head, she started to laugh. Seemed there was someone with a bit of science under their belt.

The water was arctic. It burned as she breathed deep, though the level was already nearing the ceiling. And as she held the lungful for an instant, as the water reached the stones overhead and—

And then the water was gone and she held a lungful of air. She frowned and breathed out, looking at the students inside the old wizard's shield. They were not, as she expected, panicking or even confused. She had almost a full second to consider that before a wave of searing heat dropped her to her knees. She watched through boiling eyes the Nightshade Armor she wore heat from the ever black to red, then progressing to white before—

The heat was gone and the only proof it had ever been was her glowing armor and the stench as it seared her flesh and melted onto what was left beneath that—

And then as though it had never gone, the water just a milibarr's length from ice, filled the room floor to ceiling and her armor screamed as almost instantly it cooled by too many degrees.

The Lady barked a silent laugh into the abruptly aqueous room. So that was the plan. Very clever.

And ultimately pointless, she saw as the water vanished again and left the Executioner slightly duller than the previous radiant silver. She looked around the room as the next heat wave struck, noting that the room was no longer a room so much as a solid cube of stone, with her and the Executioner the only beings still in existence outside of the shield the ancient wizard held.

Of course, that left the Executioner free to focus all of his efforts on the shield. The relentless pounding was beginning to irritate her. There was a sound, though it was not the sound of the shield vibrating from the impact of the Executioner's ribbons, but the whisper-hiss-scream of the ribbons lashing through the air. The shield was utterly silent.

Then the water, and the heat. And again. And again. And again.

And then she felt something in the stone of the castle change.

And she watched, first with curiosity, and then with delight, as the water fell away and the walls of Hogwarts shifted, no more than a centimeter, but enough so that the next instant, the old wizard's shield collapsed and he wrapped one around only himself as the heat scorched the students to bone and then to nothing.

And as the reservoir of power built within the ritual circle crafted by the careful positioning of the students suddenly was no longer contained, it chose to do what came naturally. It sought to equalize the concentration of the magic within the space the reservoir had been with the rest of the world.

In short, it exploded.

And immediately the heat vanished, before even the outrush of magic had torn the wizard's shield asunder. Before even the Executioner had raised his hemispheres to drain the onslaught. Before even the Lady realized what was happening and laughed defiantly.

When she could see straight again, she realized that the Executioner had made no move to slaughter the old man on the floor.

"This Witch is _mine_," she snapped. "_Mine_."

The Executioner turned and slid out of the room, where the damage to the stonework abruptly stopped, and then disappeared through a wall.

"Now," the Lady said, moving to stand before the Witch, her armor already but a dull red, "You are going to tell me anything I wish to know."

---

Lily Evans was scared.

Even so, she was possessed of her wits. She had realized at the moment that the Headmaster began to barricade the room they had retreated to that they were fucked.

They were all dead. When was soon, and where… well, where wasn't something that had been chosen for her. So she slipped away without half a thought about it.

She'd heard the screaming, and then she'd heard the screaming stop. That was worse.

So now she shivered, alone in a dark corner of a classroom, wondering if maybe she should have stayed with the rest and died with them. It might have been better than dying alone, or at least better than the anticipation of dying alone.

She didn't scream as the wall oozed some strange, shining liquid. She panicked, but she did not scream. Then it formed a vaguely familiar figure, though she couldn't quite tell who it was mimicking. Eyes opened like scales across the being, and she felt everything inside her start trying to climb out of her body through her back.

The eyes focused on her, and she felt as though she were being judged.

An instant later the thing had passed through the wall on the opposite side of the room, immediately next to the window.

Lily decided against investigating.

---

He was only conscious in the way that a rose is conscious. He existed. He performed solely what must to perpetuate that.

The elimination of threats to that continued existence was less than a thought. Less even than a reaction. It simply was.

He stirred slightly when his form passed the girl with red hair and green eyes. Not a threat. Then he rested again.

When next he woke, he stood behind a screaming vortex of blood. He felt it was peculiarly familiar. It twitched at the edge of the final sense, though he could not quite tell why.

He stood still and watched. The man at the center of the vortex would not win. The man at the center of the vortex could not win. The man at the center of the vortex, after all, had already ceded the rest of his battered soul.

He watched as the man in the vortex fought without moving. He watched as the man in the vortex reached out to boil the Limper's blood in his body. He watched as the Limper ignored the inferno inside and struck back with a blow so poorly crafted of wild magic that it managed to shatter the blood that attempted to shield the man and rend him open from shoulder to thigh. The man started to collapse, and then the vortex closed around him, lifted him upright, and cradled him.

He watched as the Limper snarled irritably and slammed his will formed of magic into the blood coffin and savaged it.

He watched and he waited. Plenty of time to let the Limper play. They had done it before. They would do it again.

---

_Time, they say, is a fickle thing. They say to change the past is to destroy all of existence. They say that a single, simple paradox would end Time._

_As if some ape-descendants could destroy a thing that has existed, will exist, for all of ever.  
Personal journal of Ancient V._


End file.
